The double standard of the anti-vaccine “autism biomed” movement never ceases to amaze me.

Imagine if you will, that a pharmaceutical company examined a chemical used for industrial purposes. Imagine further that the chemical this pharmaceutical company decided to look at originated as an industrial chelator designed to separate heavy metals from polluted soil and mining drainage. Imagine still further that that pharmaceutical company wanted to use that chemical as a treatment for autism, a chelator to be given to children. Finally, imagine that the drug company was giving this chemical to children without anything resembling any sort of competent preclincal testing or toxicology testing. Then suppose that, in order to avoid having to obtain FDA approval, the pharmaceutical company rebranded its chelating agent as a “supplement,” using the DSHEA of 1994 to bypass any need for extensive clinical trial testing for safety and efficacy in order to be able to market this chemical directly to consumers. What do you think the reaction would be of the crew at Age of Autism and other anti-vaccine blogs?

Yet, that’s exactly what Professor Boyd Haley, a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Kentucky and former chairman of the Department of Chemistry there whose career tanked after he fell down the rabbithole of mercury-autism pseudoscience has done. Trine Tsouderos of the Chicago Tribune, the reporter who has worked on two previous excellent exposes of the anti-vaccine movement and “autism biomed” movement has documented something that I had from time to time been meaning to write about but for whatever reason hadn’t, has documented it in a third excellent story to add to her trifecta entitled OSR#1: Industrial chemical or autism treatment? Parents giving kids compound created for use in mining, sold as supplement.

An industrial chemical developed to help separate heavy metals from polluted soil and mining drainage is being sold as a dietary supplement by a luminary in the world of alternative autism treatments.

Called OSR#1, the supplement is described on its Web site as an antioxidant not meant to treat any disease. But the site lists pharmacies and doctors who sell it to parents of children with autism, and the compound has been promoted to parents on popular autism Web sites.

“I sprinkle the powder into Bella’s morning juice and onto Mia and Gianna’s gluten free waffle breakfast sandwich,” wrote Kim Stagliano, managing editor of Age of Autism and mother of three girls on the autism spectrum, in an enthusiastic post last spring. “We’ve seen some nice ‘Wows!’ from OSR.”

A search of medical journals unearthed no papers published about OSR#1, though the compound’s industrial uses have been explored in publications such as the Journal of Hazardous Materials.

Depressingly, but not surprisingly, not only is the anti-vaccine movement not criticizing this practice, but it’s enthusiastically embracing it. Indeed, the anti-vaccine crank blog, Age of Autism, has been enthusiastically pimping Haley’s wonder supplement for over a year now. Examples include Kim Stagliano’s glowing testimonial that attributes imporvements that could almost certainly be due to growth and development that Tsouderos quoted in her article:

My three girls began taking OSR several months ago. OSR has been the only recent addition to their treatment. I can tell you that Gianna is now in two mainstream classes in school, Mia is telling me what day it is and what’s on her schedule at school and Bella is…. well, Bella is cuter than ever and her receptive speech has improved to where she can follow directions and communicate with her PECS. I’ve seen some minor sleep disruption that passed in two of the three girls.

Because OSR makes autistic children cuter, I guess. Oddly enough, Stagliano and the crew at AoA seem not at all concerned that this chemical has not undergone adequate safety testing. Indeed, when AoA got wind that Tsouderos’s article would soon see print, it launched a pre-emptive attack. In the comments the mercury cultists even stooped so far as to make fun of Tsouderos’ first name. Stay classy, AoA. Stay classy. Oh, well. I suppose it’s not as bad as being portrayed as a baby-eating cannibal.

In any case, Haley does not like being questioned about OSR by anyone who’s not a toady, sycophant, or lackey (like AoA) whose message he can’t easily control (as he can AoA’s), and he really doesn’t like being questioned by skeptical reporters. No, he doesn’t like it at all:

Boyd Haley, president of the Lexington, Ky.-based company that produces the compound, acknowledged its industrial origins but calls his product “a food” that is “totally without toxicity.” He said he has been taking the supplement for nearly three years.

“Look, I put myself on the line,” he said. “I have taken 250 milligrams per day, on the average.”

Federal law requires manufacturers to explain why a new dietary ingredient reasonably can be expected to be safe. The Food and Drug Administration told the Tribune that Haley had not submitted sufficient information.

In an interview, Haley said that the compound had been tested on rats and that a food safety study was conducted on 10 people. Asked to provide documentation of the studies, he stopped communicating with the Tribune.

More telling is comparing Boyd Haley from four years ago to Boyd Haley now:

In a 2006 interview for the magazine Medical Veritas, Haley told a reporter from AutismOne Radio that he was interested in developing better chelators for people.

“We’ve made compounds that … work tremendously” in a test tube, he said. “However, we’ve got to show that they’re not toxic. That costs a lot of money and it’s very difficult to do, you have to have the right facilities. That’s where we’re hung up right now, the question is, ‘How do we get somebody to do these studies?'”

In January 2008 Haley changed the name of his company from Chelator Technologies Inc. to CTI Science Inc. Less than a month later, he notified the FDA he would be introducing the compound as a new dietary ingredient.

Heh. I like how Tsouderos described Medical Veritas as a “magazine” and not a journal. That’s perfect, because MV is as cranky a journal as JPANDS.

I will give Haley credit for chutzpah, tough. On the OSR website, the company denies explicitly that OSR is a chelator, even though it appears to be chemically identical to…an industrial chelator developed by Haley’s colleague David Atwood at the University of Kentucky! Curiouser and curiouser. Indeed, the ever-vigilant Kathleen Seidel first documented that this was the case a year and a half ago in a series of posts that included A Fine White Powder; The Industrial Treatment; and An Inquiry Emerges. All are worth your reading completely, as they show unequivocally that OSR is indeed a chelator and that Haley had been discussing his new “chelators” at various autism quackery conferences, his attempt to “rebrand” it as an anti-oxidant and deny its industrial past.

More interesting still is how the company claims that the drug has undergone extensive toxicity testing in both rats and humans but the results of that testing are nowhere to be found in the medical literature. Even if that’s true, I find it irresponsible to the point of recklessness to give an industrial chemical like this to children without its having undergone phase 1 clinical testing to define its toxicity and maximal tolerated dose and its having undergone phase 2 and 3 testing to show that it’s actually good for a medical condition and that the risk-benefit ratio is favorable. In the absence of this data, what we are dealing with is unethical experimentation on autistic children.

Not that this is anything new for the anti-vaccine movement. Think Lupron.

Tousderos’s story is instructive in two ways. First, it reveals more plainly than anything I can think of the utter hypocrisy and double standard behind the anti-vaccine movement and the “autism biomed” movement. They say they want “natural” treatments like dietary manipulations and supplements; yet, they are not only not fearful of sprinkling a white chemical powder made for industry on their children’s food. Secondly, it shows how the DSHEA of 1994 has allowed nearly free rein to the unscrupulous to sell virtually anything with minimal FDA interference, even if it’s selling synthetic chemicals to children. All they have to do is to declare it a “supplement,” and they can sell virtually anything.

More importantly, however, this story shows a new trend that began last year in the media. This most welcome trend involves newspapers and media outlets deemphasizing the false “balance” construct so common in lazy journalism about pseudoscientific movements like the anti-vaccine movement. In its place, at least in this case, there is a more realistic portrayal of the state of medical science. Experts say plainly that there’s nothing too this stuff and it might be dangerous. No more swallowing the claims of psuedoscience credulously, without checking out these claims and finding out that, far more often than not, they don’t check out.

In journalism, 2010 is staring out OK, particularly as I watch the anti-vaccine movement lose its mind in the after Tsouderos’ article.

Comments

Even of OSR is as safe as AoA claims, Haley bypassed FDA approval and started marketing it as a dubious “supplement.” AoA are pure hypocrites, because if any “conventional” doctor did that they’d scream bloody murder. But have one of their own do it, and it’s OK. In fact, he’s a hero.

Once again, The Tribune sheds light on dubious autism treatments. One point which I wish Ms. Tsouderos had mentioned were the
detrimental effects of chelation had on rats with no elevated levels of metal. One, if not the, reason that the NIH pulled the plug on the autism-chelation study.

Utterly appalling that Haley hasn’t been arrested or at least heavily fined over this. Practicing medicine without a license, unauthorized human experimentation, sale of an unapproved drug, and fraud (claiming it’s not a chelator is a lie, and he’s monetarily profiting from that lie) – just for starters! If someone has a bad reaction/takes too much and dies, IMO he’s guilty of murder too.

SWT wrote: “It’s all in the framing, isn’t it? When fed to the kiddos, it’s OSR#1. One would never feed one’s kids some awful chemical like N1,N3-bis(2-mercaptoethyl)isophthalamide.”

Ah, but it’s even worse. The inventor of OSR#1, Dr. Atwood, at the University of Kentucky, calls OSR#1 by it’s IUPAC name:

1,3-benzenediamidoethanethiol

Haley changed that name to the more benign sounding N1,N3-bis(2-mercaptoethyl)isophthalamide because it doesn’t contain that awful word “benzene”. Do you think even the AoA crowd would be stupid enough to feed their children something with the word “benzene” in it?

How could these people do this to their children? I find it disgusting that they are willing to try any and everything to avoid accepting their children for who they are. Just so they don’t have to face the fact that it is in the genes. These people are damn selfish!

They love their children under the condition that they be ‘normal’. If they can’t become ‘normal’ than they just aren’t worth the time and effort it takes to do real autism therapy. They need a cure, not a treatment, because to them the only acceptable outcome is a ‘perfect’ child.

Something that is rarely mentioned is that these treatments are scary and painful. How can they stand to see the look in their child’s eyes of “why mommy, make it stop”. I have seen that look in my daughters eyes when she was being treated for Rotovirus (for electrolyte imbalance, but Rotovirus isn’t dangerous, right), I would certainly not cause her that pain to sooth my own selfish need to have a ‘normal’ child.

It has taking time and patience to find the therapies that work for my son, but taking that time has brought us closer and made me see that there is nothing wrong with him. He is a different ‘normal’, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

MikeMa: Industry is something done by the manly, self-sufficient and healthy steelworkers and such upon which America’s greatness was built. Science is something done by intellectuals who wouldn’t know patriotism if an eagle gouged out their eyes.

I’ve always had trouble understanding why the autism cranks are so pro-Lupron, while people with endometriosis are often violently anti-Lupron.

Personally, I’ve been reluctant to try Lupron mysef given that it has legitimate unpleasant side effects, but it’s obvious that a lot of the anti-Lupron rhetoric is unscientific hysteria. I just think it’s funny that the autism people, who are as toxicophobic as it gets, are so interested in the VERY SAME DRUG that frightens another group of toxicophobes.

They use a *soil* treatment chemical on their children? They treat their kids like dirt- both figuratively and *literally*!( He tested it on “neighborhood cats”? Aren’t there *laws* about things like that, as well as shows on AnimalPlanet?)

How could these people do this to their children? I find it disgusting that they are willing to try any and everything to avoid accepting their children for who they are. Just so they don’t have to face the fact that it is in the genes. These people are damn selfish!

There are some pretty strong parallels to the ‘ex-gay’ movement here. Don’t know why I didn’t notice it before.

Orac, I wrote about this on my blog last week. Not OSR, mind you, but the ridiculous way that the alt-med world look at testing. It’s a massive frustration to me to get into a discussion with someone who bases one half of their argument on paranoid fear of products that weren’t tested enough, and then leap for the other half of the argument to totally untested chemical treatments.

“…seriously? The third kid’s unvaccinated? How fucking stupid does someone have to be to continue blaming vaccines for the first two after that? Bloody hell.”

Actually, I had one person try to explain how this happens. You see, the “mutated” measles virus was transmitted from my older, vaccinated son, to my unvaccinated son, possibly because they bathed together, or perhaps because I didn’t wash my hands after wiping the older one’s butt. Hence, the reason my unvaccinated child is autistic. I started laughing, but the look on this person’s face was deadly serious!

“More interesting still is how the company claims that the drug has undergone extensive toxicity testing in both rats and humans but the results of that testing are nowhere to be found in the medical literature.”

To be fair (difficult as that is) to them a lot of pre-clinical toxicity testing data is never published in the medical literature, particularly for drug candidates that doesn’t make it into phase I clinical trials. It may well be the case that on the strength of the test data they have OSR#1 would pass the FDA’s safety requirements for dietary ingredients, though the FDA clearly doesn’t accept that it is a dietary ingredient.

Trying to pass OSR#1 off as a dietary supplement when they clearly intend it to be used as a drug does make sense for them. If they get away with it the pre-clinical/animal testing bar is set far lower and they get to avoid clinical trials altogether. The whole thing stinks almost as much as using pointless and dangerous chelation therapy on autistic children in the first place.

I keep thinking “these people have to be insane” but I know thats not true. Most are ignorant, deluded and desperate but people behind the anti-vaccination movement, they are liars and con artists. They are evil.

The Chcago Tribune article points out that CTI Technologies has not complied with the New Dietary Ingredient provision of 1994’s DSHEA:

“In June 2008, an FDA senior toxicologist sent a letter to Haley that questioned on what basis the product could be expected to be safe and could be considered a dietary ingredient. According to FDA spokeswoman Siobhan DeLancey, Haley has not responded to the request for more information.”

The NDI provision requires that a company provide evidence of product safety 75 days prior to marketing. Any product that is marketed without complying with the NDI notification process is considered adulterated and the manufacturer is then subject to a range of penalties, including fines, seizure, and imprisonment. Since 1994 the FDA has rejected about 70% of NDI applications filed.

Why hasn’t the FDA used it’s legal authority to prosecute CTI Technologies? The problem is not with DSHEA. The problem is the FDA’s non-enforcement of existing laws. Many believe FDA bureaucrats are implementing a policy of intentional DSHEA non-enforcement, thereby hoping DSHEA itself gets blamed for any problems. This is further explained in the article, FDA fails to deter H1N1 fraud, claims New York legal expert.

“I am asking if vaccine schedules are a contributing factor to the current epidemic of neurological illnesses including autism. I’m not asking if they are the one and only cause. Nor am I implying it’s all about the mercury. My youngest had a traumatic inutero injury with birth related oxygen issues and inherited a mercury/toxin load from me. You know, the genetics part.”

I hyperlinked to the blog comment, so if you’d like to see the entire post, as well as the comment thread, click my name.

Many people consider the possibility that they’ve passed defective genes on to their child appalling and unacceptable. Two of my nephews have a genetic deletion and testing suggested it was due to a fragile site in their mother, my husband’s sister. Genetic testing was recommended to determine which of her parents passed this on to her (both to help further the understanding of this exceedingly rare genetic defect and to shed light on whether other family members should be concerned they might also carry the fragile site). Both my mother-in-law and father-in-law refused to be tested, essentially saying they didn’t want to know if they were “responsible” for passing this condition on to their grandsons. As if we are responsible for such things or can control our DNA!!!

I think this plays a role in some parents of autistic children refusing to consider the genetic basis of autism. And, who can you direct your anger towards if it’s in your genes and not the result of greed or deceit or bad science?

I keep thinking “these people have to be insane” but I know thats not true. Most are ignorant, deluded and desperate but people behind the anti-vaccination movement, they are liars and con artists. They are evil.

I really wouldn’t be too certain of that fact. I thought Jenny McCarthy was insane long before she ever became anti-vaccination. Its kind of hard not to form that opinion when she thought her son was the next stage of human evolution (Indigo children).

Wait.. a vaccine with an almost unmeasurable amount of mercury will doom your child forever, but adding this stuff to their food is fine and dandy ? Hello ? :::knock knock knock:::
You give this untested crap to your children based on a failed chemist telling you it works in test tubes ?
Are you completely insane ?
The risk of being poisoned by your cooking compounded with being tortured by quacks like Rashid Buttar makes me damn glad I’m not one of your children.

Pretty much. I asked her about her reasoning concerning vaccines when she had three on the spectrum (not at that time knowing her youngest hadn’t been vaccinated) my very first interaction with her and here’s her response (hyperlinked through my name again):

“Hi, K – how are you doing? Having multiples with autism is taxing. I hope your kids are well and that you have the services you need. Genetics may load the gun, but environment pulls the trigger. There is no such thing as an instant (20 years) genetics epidemic. Biology doesn’t work that way. We need to look at all environmental causes – and that includes vaccines. My point here is that it’s the ONE THING ASF doesn’t want to look at, and that makes me ask why. Our vaccine program is as much religion as science – it’s public health, which looks at the whole, rather than the individual. I understand that concept and why it works. However, the individual data points are real people. There is such a thing as vaccine injury. And we need to look at its role in the skyrocketing autism numbers that will surely bankrupt families, crush social security and paralyze school systems.

Good luck with your kiddos. Are we a Brady Bunch? I have the girls. Are yours boys? :)”

On reflection, it occurs to me that, while this is certainly absolute, unmitigated crazy, it isn’t necessarily a double standard. If these idiots think feeding their kids an untested chemical is safe, then yes, it’s a clear double standard. On the other hand, perhaps they just don’t care if it’s safe or not. Recall that more than one lunatic has expressed the opinion that they’d rather their children had cancer than autism.

CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES should be consulted with the case of the magic chemical powder being sprinkled into juice and onto the “gluten free waffle sandwich”

HAVE TO ADMIT IT…(kudo’s to Maxtwee @ post #11)
Wikipedia DOES occasionally have a nugget of reason!..
” Chelation is also used as a scientifically unsupported, dangerous, and occasionally deadly treatment for autism.[11] ”

WHAT I FIND SO OBVIOUS is the SKIPPED SOLUTION TO ALL THIS…
you need to take the chelating agent, and simply have some of our finest homeo-pathic woo-geneers prepare a well shaken, not stirred serial dilution… that should of course provide water that ‘remembers’ how to remove the toxins both in the vaccinated child AND even in the child who is unvaccinated…

I am serious… someone should find out where those children are being fed chemicals, and call the protective authorities.

Thanks, I should have thought to look up the IUPAC name. Still no MSDS, of course, but the material is obviously going to be an effective chelator — very clever molecular design. Gives me a couple of thoughts related to my own research.

The “double standard” is probably connected to the ability to “doublethink,” in that the same event can be framed in two different ways, depending on which story-template the brain is using. People seem to have a strong tendency to overemphasize the importance of intention: if you mean well, then you fit into the romance narrative of hero bringing the beneficial treatment to the afflicted. If you’re seen as not ‘meaning well’ — being a profit-driven corporation, say — then your risk-taking is harmful. The technical details might be the same in both cases. The significant difference is going to lie in personalities — or thoughts.

@43 – It is a pretty clever molecule. From one of the papers I was able to find (Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2002, 41, 1579-1582) it looks like it has a preference for soft heavy metals, but who knows what it’ll pull out of a person without elevated levels of heavy metals in their blood.

are you referring to the organization that NEEDS to be involved…
People for the
Educated, Effective, Ethical
Treatment of
AUTISTIC persons?

originally, child abuse cases had to be prosecuted under CHILD CRUELTY laws, perhaps PETA should be invited into the fray.. they certainly can mount an offense when someone dons a fur coat or serves steak…

Love this blog and am completely shocked as well, but one question. Why use the word “industrial” when describing this compound? It doesn’t matter where it came from – some of the most toxic compounds come from completely “natural” courses (think aflatoxin). It makes it sound like they are having the children lick the floor of some factory and strikes me as a wee bit scare mongering to play up the industrial part… thats what they do, not us. That said, thanks for bring this up. I would be interested to hear what you think about the “autism spectrum” as a “diagnosis”… seems flimsy to me and very open to interpretation.

1,3-benzenediamidoethanethiol or N1,N3-bis(2-mercaptoethyl)isophthalamide, I have no clue about it’s toxicity, but tossing words like “industrial” and “mining” out there is a complete canard; a compound’s origin has nothing to do with it’s safety profile. My first thought is OH MY GOD THE STENCH!!! Anyone else out there ever work with aromatic thiols? They must be selling it as the sodium salt or the disulfide.

It’s easy to condemn the anti-vaccine movement from your point of view, but it’s also easy to condemn you from the point of view of a mother with an autistic, i.e. incurably ill, child. (You’d have to experience incurable illness yourself in order to understand their situation. (No need to endorse their “treatments”, though.))

What does the scientific viewpoint offer to them? Just a reprimand that they’re trying to help their children, questionable or not? Shouldn’t you be looking for, you know, a cure?

I hope you don’t think that researchers working on autism do not engage in myths of similar stupidness (to the case you present here), because, well, the science part of science is also about toppling the current groupthink, be it the doctor’s education or the parent’s misconception. Or the doctor’s misconception and parent’s insight; who knows which is which.

Well, this is the most cynical board I’ve read in a while. I started taking OSR a few weeks ago because I have a chronic illness, and I hate to inform you, but the OSR has significantly changed my symptoms to the positive in a way that NOTHING has. I have been sick for over 6 years, have been dismissed by that wonderful FDA approved medical community and treated with a level of disrespect that is stunning. After spending over 50,000 dollars in mainstream medical costs and getting no where, what a thrill to spend pennies and get my life back. I don’t give a damn if I get cancer it beats the hell out of being bedridden and barely conscious. I will gladly take quality over quantity. Get a clue, people, if your life had been stolen from you, you’d doing anything to get it back too. As for my autistic children, imagine dealing with the CONSTANT looks of disappointment and confusion on their faces when they don’t understand what’s going on in their worlds, when classmates ignore or reject them because they don’t understand why they’re acting the way they’re acting. It’s a lonely path. We have a CDC that is a total waste of tax payer money. There are studies that demonstrate that heavy metals are neurotoxic and demonstrate a clear correlation between vaccines and autism onset, these studies were deliberately dismissed and hidden by the CDC. Afterall, we wouldn’t want to put a stop to public vaccination just because it destroys one out of 150 children – it’s all about the “public good.” I pray that none of your families are genetically susceptible to methylation cycle defects and that they can throw off the heavy metal insults. Otherwise you’re in for a living hell. I take my kids anyway they come, I love them dearly, but that doesn’t dismiss my obligation to help them have the best life they can achieve. Maybe you all could find a little compassion.

Given the laxity of regulation by the FDA when it comes to marketing supplements, we can only hope that Boyd Haley’s miracle capsules actually contain nothing at all. This is perfectly likley given that nobody ever tests these things to see if they contain the trumpeted active ingredient and let’s face it, the mighty dollar is undoubtedly the bottom line where Haley and his ilk are concerned. I can never get over the hypocrisy of anti-vaccine nuts who shove things like colloidal silver onto and into their children, and although we’ve come to expect double standards from the AOA crew I still cringe at the idea of Kim liberally sprinkling her kids’ cereal with this stuff. For her sake and the sakes of those poor little girls, we have to hope that Haley is indeed as unscrupulous as he seems and that the stuff purported to be OSR is actually just homeopathy-style sugar!

Because the fact that it was developed for industrial use has a direct impact on the level of scrutiny to which it has already been subjected. If it had been originally developed as a drug but was being used for an inappropriate indication, there would be more grounds to suggest safety.

@57:

I started taking OSR a few weeks ago because I have a chronic illness, and I hate to inform you, but the OSR has significantly changed my symptoms to the positive in a way that NOTHING has.

What illness, and please provide evidence that the OSR is responsible. Keeping in mind the placebo effect and the possibility of coincidence.

I have been sick for over 6 years, have been dismissed by that wonderful FDA approved medical community and treated with a level of disrespect that is stunning. After spending over 50,000 dollars in mainstream medical costs and getting no where, what a thrill to spend pennies and get my life back. I don’t give a damn if I get cancer it beats the hell out of being bedridden and barely conscious. I will gladly take quality over quantity. Get a clue, people, if your life had been stolen from you, you’d doing anything to get it back too. As for my autistic children, imagine dealing with the CONSTANT looks of disappointment and confusion on their faces when they don’t understand what’s going on in their worlds, when classmates ignore or reject them because they don’t understand why they’re acting the way they’re acting. It’s a lonely path.

Precisely zero relevance to the question of whether this stuff is safe or effective.

We have a CDC that is a total waste of tax payer money.

Evidence, please.

There are studies that demonstrate that heavy metals are neurotoxic

Evidence of relevance, specifically of neurotoxicity producing the symptoms of autism in the doses to which children are actually opposed.

and demonstrate a clear correlation between vaccines and autism onset,

Please provide citations.

these studies were deliberately dismissed and hidden by the CDC.

Again, evidence.

Afterall, we wouldn’t want to put a stop to public vaccination just because it destroys one out of 150 children – it’s all about the “public good.” I pray that none of your families are genetically susceptible to methylation cycle defects and that they can throw off the heavy metal insults. Otherwise you’re in for a living hell.

(Starting to feel like a broken record here) Again, such claims demand evidentiary support.

I take my kids anyway they come, I love them dearly, but that doesn’t dismiss my obligation to help them have the best life they can achieve. Maybe you all could find a little compassion.

We’re worried about you giving potentially lethal medications to your children completely at random without any consideration whatsoever of whether or not it’ll kill them, and without any evidence that it will do any good? How is that an absence of compassion?

Demanding that children deserve treatments that have been rigorously tested to ensure that they’re safe and effective is far more compassionate than treating them as human guinea pigs.

Using “synthetic chemicals” as if it has any relation to safety or efficacy is dangerously close to the common alt-med trap.

It’s no different in principle than selling “herbal remedies” to children, assuming that the ones in question actually did anything beyond a placebo.

The problem is selling pseudo-medicines with a wink and calling them “supplements” while acting as if they’re of proven efficacy and known safety. There’s no real difference there between such a compound that’s a “synthetic chemical” or a “natural herbal remedy”.

(In fact, all else equal, I’d prefer the synthetic, since at least then we know, in theory, exactly what it contains…)

“I am asking if vaccine schedules are a contributing factor to the current epidemic of neurological illnesses including autism. I’m not asking if they are the one and only cause. Nor am I implying it’s all about the mercury. My youngest had a traumatic inutero injury with birth related oxygen issues and inherited a mercury/toxin load from me. You know, the genetics part.”

*jaw drops*

That’s “the genetics part”? She just blamed it all on an trauma, anoxic brain injury, and toxins absorbed through the placenta, and she calls *that* genetics? Wow.

I’m a lawyer and used to represent my state’s child protection agency. Although I think that giving children this chemical would qualify as “child abuse or neglect” (the federal law term), I doubt any state’s child protection agency would act to remove a child from a parent who administers this “treatment.”

The unfortunate reality is that child protection agencies are woefully underfunded, especially in these times of state budget crises. Given risks like sexual abusers living with children, meth labs in children’s homes, and moms’ boyfriends who beat the crap out of mom’s kids (just going with the statistics for that example of outright physical abuse), I don’t think this would have a high enough priority in the child protection system.

As a father of an autistic child, I’m awfully glad I have the medical care for my son that I do. I have never thought that medicine or science was failing me or my son.

So what ARE the rules for the scrutiny of supplements? I know they are less strict, but I am surprised that it matters whether a compound was developed for an industrial purpose versus any other purpose. Vaseline is derived from an industrial product (petroleum) but appears harmless on my lips. Aflattoxin is not produced by or for an industrial purpose (not sure why Aspergillus spp makes it)but is extremely toxic. Ditto for cycloheximide, actinomycin and ergot alkaloids – all completely natural yet very toxic compounds. But maybe the point is the lax regulation of supplements… what is the process for getting something approved as such?

I hope you don’t think that researchers working on autism do not engage in myths of similar stupidness (to the case you present here), because, well, the science part of science is also about toppling the current groupthink, be it the doctor’s education or the parent’s misconception. Or the doctor’s misconception and parent’s insight; who knows which is which.

We’re not exactly talking about having right or wrong hypotheses here. We’re talking about apparent wrongdoing; namely, selling a drug of unknown toxicity and misrepresenting what it is.

Orac,
You let yourself slip up a bit here:
” Imagine if you will, that a pharmaceutical company examined a chemical used for industrial purposes. Imagine further that the chemical this pharmaceutical company decided to look at originated as an industrial chelator designed to separate heavy metals from polluted soil and mining drainage. Imagine still further that that pharmaceutical company wanted to use that chemical as a treatment for autism, a chelator to be given to children. Finally, imagine that the drug company was giving this chemical to children without anything resembling any sort of competent preclincal testing or toxicology testing.”

The only point that is relevant is that it was not tested properly in clinical trials. Regardless of where a chemical comes from or whether it’s synthetic the only relevant argument is whether it has promise to carry out it’s intended effect, treat. All the other points are riff-raff that don’t add anything to the discussion.

@56 (Adam_Y) – There are two points here: (1) the source of the compound (where it was made, what it was made from) – which DOES affect its safety and (2) why a compound was made (for industrial purposes, or for cleaning whitewall tires, or for stopping the fungal cell next me from growing), which does NOT affect its safety. A compound is either toxic or its not, regardless of why it was developed.

I completely agree with you that the SOURCE of the selenium on the “exspensive urine” shelves at the store is very important, but it wouldn’t bother me at’al if selenium had originally been isolated in an attempt to make a floor cleaner. Now, if it WERE a good floor cleaner, I’d like to know that before I took it, but as a rule I don’t take supplements in order to keep my cost per volume of urine low.

So what ARE the rules for the scrutiny of supplements? I know they are less strict, but I am surprised that it matters whether a compound was developed for an industrial purpose versus any other purpose.

As the article phrases it, “[f]ederal law requires manufacturers to explain why a new dietary ingredient reasonably can be expected to be safe.” Since this is an industrial chemical (and hence the work done on it is that appropriate to demonstrate safety for industrial use), it hasn’t even reached that hurdle. As the article reports, the FDA demanded but did not get from Haley the information required of a supplement; why they didn’t act after failing to receive it is currently a mystery. (Though speculations may certainly be made.)

That’s completely leaving out the fact that it’s actually a drug and hence the same level of evidence for safety and efficacy should be demanded of it, regardless of the fraudulent labeling as a supplement.

The only point that is relevant is that it was not tested properly in clinical trials. Regardless of where a chemical comes from or whether it’s synthetic the only relevant argument is whether it has promise to carry out it’s intended effect, treat. All the other points are riff-raff that don’t add anything to the discussion.

But those other points are precisely the kind of thing that AoA and others like them routinely raise themselves. Orac’s point is not that whether the chemical is industrial, or synthetic, or whatever, should matter, but rather that the people to whom it usually does matter are happy to overlook it in this case.

Why is it that social ineptitude, or failure to be popular, is now a disease that must be treated? 20 years ago, autism referred to some extreme behaviors. Now the definition, thus the number of possible patients, has been broadened significantly. Is at a movement to physically & psychologically standardize everyone, or just an attempt to sell more services to more people?

Well, I certainly wouldn’t ingest this stuff. It might be harmless, but I wouldn’t bank on it. A quick review of the literature doesn’t reveal any safety analysis has been done on it whatsoever, even from the perspective of its industrial applications. The thing is, the kinds of compounds it is hoping to replace for heap drainage reclamation are staggeringly unpleasant chemicals that react in situ to release even more exciting options. So, while a 2002 conference report does describe this chemical as “relatively … non-toxic”, that qualifier leaves an awful lot of wiggle room.

Related compounds vary widely in toxicity. Neither of the two most similar ones for which I was able to quickly obtain safety information are the sort of thing I’d willingly consume. Thiophenol is poisonous, and dangerously so. Benzenemethenethiol is a lachrymating agent and is thought to have bioaccumulative effects. Do these dangers apply to this novel compound? Impossible to say from just looking at the chemistry.

Then we have to consider its effects in vivo. It is, admittedly, a powerful chelating agent. That presents its own problems. In addition to the core risks of chelation, the specificity with which this compound binds soft heavy metals and the strength of the bound complexes make me wonder whether it might interfere with the proper biological role of some of these elements, such as the zinc and copper required to produce superoxide dismutase 1. And of course, it would be important to know whether this compound could bind anything other than heavy metals.

And finally, we know nothing about the metabolic pathways for either this compound or its bound complexes with metals. Depending on how it is metabolized, there are a number of plausible, patently toxic byproducts possible. Cumulative liver and kidney damage would not be a surprise. Is that what happens? We don’t know.

That’s the point. We don’t know. No one is supposed to be eating stuff — or, worse! feeding it to their kids — when we know so little about the human biochemistry. Right now, we know that it does a pretty awesome job of pulling mercury out of acid mine drainage without being destroyed by the acidic conditions. But no one is so sick that their chemistry is like THAT chemistry.

Youch. I notice there is nothing out there to indicate just how specific this OSR is to various ions out there (because if you’re using it to purify waste-water, who cares if it binds to calcium/magnesium/potassium ?)

Nothing whatsoever. So we could soon have kids coming down with God-only-knows what kind of mineral deficiencies from this stuff.

you make several good points sir. I would however, not suggest that the children be taken out of that home automatically, but a “wellness” exam would be prudent within the CPS net, perhaps. A Family that sprinkles a household/industrial/ non medicinal/ questionable purity chemical onto food, does not adhere to recommended pediatric preventive medicine guidelines (vaccines, and likely other issues?)is showing poor judgement. Such parents, taking health care advice from internet websites (noted medical experts Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy?) and other, shall we say, “non mainstream” sources may indeed also be doing other parental things inadequately, may in fact be starving them “for detoxification”, locking them into closet for behavior modification, who knows?… my suggestion was just that someone with insight AND authority should assess that home. And perhaps the child’s hepatic and renal functions, given that ingesting chelating agents, even when on waffles, can can certainly result in toxic effects of their own!!!

Best wishes with your own child, and thankful to hear you are affording him/her the benefits of modern medical science.

I don’t care so much about what the article says about how supplements are regulated, I want to know what the actual process is. What are the rules? ARE there any clear rules. Wouldn’t surprise me if there weren’t hard rules. Too bad the semester starts next week and I haven’t got the time, because THAT sounds like something worth researching and blogging on. I still say using the word “industrial”, without qualification and context, just sinks us to their level. But maybe thats why scientists aren’t winning the culture war, because we don’t like using creative terms that grab attention if they aren’t 100% accurate. Perhaps I am just another quibbling scientist.

As for my autistic children, imagine dealing with the CONSTANT looks of disappointment and confusion on their faces when they don’t understand what’s going on in their worlds, when classmates ignore or reject them because they don’t understand why they’re acting the way they’re acting.

This statement to me says one of three possible things about you:

1.You are projecting your own feelings on your children. Generally speaking an autistic child would not know or care if they didn’t fit in. That is part of autism, social dysfunction.

2.You are too ignorant to know your children or their personalities (BTW autistic children are not all the same, they do have personalities).

3. Or you are lying and you don’t have a child on the spectrum at all.

I guess the first two can occur together.

There are studies that demonstrate that heavy metals are neurotoxic and demonstrate a clear correlation between vaccines and autism onset, these studies were deliberately dismissed and hidden by the CDC.

In a word…no.

because it destroys one out of 150 children

If you do have an autistic child (which I highly doubt), this is the coldest, most despicable thing one can say about their child.

I have dealt with cleaning up feces on the walls and floor, staying awake with my screaming child all night not knowing why; being hit, bit, kicked, and everything else you can imagine. But I never, not once, nor will I ever consider my son damaged!!!

When I got his diagnosis I didn’t think ‘why me’ or ‘how could this happen to me’. I thought: “we can get through this, what can I do to help him be the best he can be”.

I take my kids anyway they come, I love them dearly, but that doesn’t dismiss my obligation to help them have the best life they can achieve.

Sure, sure, they are just “destroyed” right. But you want me to believe you love them anyway. If you have autistic children I feel sorry for them. Not because of the autism, but because their mother is an ignorant bitch.

I waited all day for Kim or some of the other AoA stalwarts to chime in but only got a couple of “it works for me” and “you are so mean” nitwits. Not a shred of testable evidence supporting the use of this compound as marketed. Not a shred of justification for the use of this crap. Age of Autism might just need a rename to Age of Hypocrisy.

There are two points here: (1) the source of the compound (where it was made, what it was made from) – which DOES affect its safety and (2) why a compound was made (for industrial purposes, or for cleaning whitewall tires, or for stopping the fungal cell next me from growing), which does NOT affect its safety. A compound is either toxic or its not, regardless of why it was developed.

Nope. Most laboratory and commercial chemicals are dangerous because of the fact that they are reagent grade. The concentrated forms of a lot of chemicals and compounds that we come in contact with are dangerous. Ethanol will kill you. Oxygen will kill you. Selenium will kill you. Acetic acid is not fun to play around with. I could go on…

Does anyone else find it awful funny that Google Ads serves up an ad for Chelorex (chelation suppliment) for this article?

Yeah, I see it too. I had to laugh. I don’t really consider it to be a bad thing. They have to pay for it. Besides, most of the visitors to this site either laugh it off or are already deep into the woo.

I’m with the child protection camp. Parents are inflicting cruel and possibly poisonous “treatments” on their children. Benzene is even sometimes fatal to the laboratory chemists who use it when developing other organic compounds! And I don’t mean “organic” as it is used to refer to foodstuffs grown without manufactured fertilisers or pesticides! I was appalled when I saw advertisements for pads to put on the feet of autistic children to draw out the “toxins”, but I’d far rather the foot treatment than feeding benzene compounds daily! Bring in the law!

“Yet, that’s exactly what Professor Boyd Haley, a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Kentucky and former chairman of the Department of Chemistry there whose career tanked after he fell down the rabbithole of mercury-autism pseudoscience has done.”

Do you really think that taking an unpopular stance on any issue causing the destruction of your entire career is a… reasonable thing? You sound kind of like you’re gloating, but I suppose the vitriolic tone is critical if a blog post is going to get much attention. People love a good show.

Do you really think that taking an unpopular stance on any issue causing the destruction of your entire career is a… reasonable thing? You sound kind of like you’re gloating, but I suppose the vitriolic tone is critical if a blog post is going to get much attention. People love a good show.

Oh, goody. Someone lecturing me about being so very, very mean to Dr. Haley. Sorry, but I’m just telling it like it is. The guy did go down the rabbit-hole of pseudoscience, both with his anti-vaccine views, his mercury obsession, his “Toxic Teeth” anti-amalgam group, and now his repurposing an industrial chelator into an “antioxidant” supplement in order to try to do an end run around the FDA. As a result, he did descend from a well-respected chemistry professor into the crank that he has become over the last several years. It’s rather sad, actually.

As for getting a lot of attention, well, that’s not the purpose of the vitriol. Expressing my outrage at people like Boyd Haley for what he’s doing is. If he had just tanked his career without peddling an inadequately tested “supplement” derived from an industrial chelator, I might have been a lot less harsh. Boyd deserves whatever vitriol comes his way.

Agreed. 20M anything is probably going to make you very sick (water excepted). But just because I die if I eat a bunch of your reagent grade NaCl doesn’t prove that NaCl is toxic, only that I am an idiot. To flip the argument around: a dilute and impure solution of ethidium bromide IS toxic. Cyanide kills rats not because it is reagent grade but because CN- binds to heme-Fe and prevents electron transport from occurring, something it will do even as a dilute solution. But I think we have gotten a little bit away from the original point: sprinkling anyone’s food with untested supplements is bad bad BAD.

“Just so they don’t have to face the fact that it is in the genes.”
It’s not really clear that autism IS in the genes. It’s fairly clear that vaccines don’t cause autism, but it’s not clear what causes autism.

“Reagent grade” btw is one of the lower grades in regards to the purity of industrial chemicals. But purity isn’t just concentration, it’s knowing what the rest is. Which is why pharmaceuticals are not only rated in regards to purity but also process; both have to be known and approved. You change the process by which you make a drug, you start over with the approval process, because 99 % pure with sugar being the other 1 % is fine, 99.9% pure with sodium cyanide is bad. Think thalidomide, were 100% chemically pure isn’t pure enough, you even need to know the stereoisomer content.

Thanks Jeff, this is a good start. But I am a little suspicious of trade groups, even though they might actually be 100% trustworthy. It still doesn’t give me the actual process and rules (which I am sure are Byzantine) (emphasis is mine):
“The Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN), founded in 1973 and based in Washington, D.C., is the leading trade association representing dietary supplement manufacturers and ingredient suppliers. CRN companies produce a large portion of the dietary supplements marketed in the United States and globally. Our member companies manufacture popular national brands as well as the store brands marketed by major supermarkets, drug store and discount chains. These products also include those marketed through natural food stores and mainstream direct selling companies.”

Jeff Mahr, there’s a pre-market notification process for supplements containing new dietary ingredients. You can read about it on the FDA’s site here. These submissions are publicly available government documents. You can see the submission by Boyd Haley for OSR, and the FDA’s response, here. There’s a detailed discussion of Dr. Haley’s FDA submission in Kathleen Seidel’s article, A Fine White Powder.

The FDA’s June 2008 response to the submission says:

“For the reasons discussed above, the information in your submission does not provide an adequate basis to conclude that your “N,N’-bis(2-mercaptoethyl)isophthalamide” will reasonably be expected to be safe. Therefore, your product may be adulterated under 21 U.S.C. 342(f)(1)(B) as a dietary supplement that contains a new dietary ingredient for which there is inadequate information to provide reasonable assurance that such ingredient does not present a significant or unreasonable risk of illness or injury. Introduction of such a product into interstate commerce is prohibited under 21 U.S.C. 331(a) and (v).”

According to Ms. Tsouderos’ article, the FDA confirmed that the missing safety information has never been provided. It should therefore be considered an adulterated product.

What makes you think the health community is not looking for an autism cure? Every week there’s new information about what could be causing autism (so far, everything points to genetics, with a possible in uteru influence on brain wiring), and what kinds of treatments might help.

It’s not really clear that autism IS in the genes. It’s fairly clear that vaccines don’t cause autism, but it’s not clear what causes autism.

I didn’t say that all autism and every bit of autism is caused by genetics. There seems to be some evidence that genes play a role , at least in some cases.

I have a tendency to believe in a genetic component since my husband has asperger’s syndrome and my son is autistic, my daughter is suspected to be on the spectrum also. This is anecdotal, but we do know that having one child with autism increases the risk of having another on the spectrum.

So, long story short, yes we don’t know the cause(s) of autism, but genes are a good place to start looking. So I don’t think we disagree.

The point I was trying to make is this is something the anti-vaccine crowd dismisses offhand because they don’t want to face the possibility.

I am sorry for my bad choice of words, it is my own biased opinion, not fact. I will try not trip on my opinion again.

In terms of what autism is you may want to read the papers concerning it from the first, Kanner 1943, through Asperger Syndrome a clinical account (Wing 1981).

Kanner 1943
Autism is separated from the rest of Childhood Schizophrenia in part because schizophrenia is regressive and autism doesn’t.

Kanner 1965
The first few pages are important. First, Kanner mentions that the adjective autism that predated his paper does not describe his children (regression and in their own world). He then comments on how “mentally defective children” caused autism to become a “multitude” in America and Europe. During the fight to remove the additions they attempt to give them the title “false autistic”. In the end they are assigned the new title of “brain injured child”. Autism afterward is separated completely from Childhood schizophrenia into the first of four boxes titled the false defective or autistic type.

In Wing 1993 there is an addition of extremely mentally retarded children that are eventually not removed because Wing gets her way and the new broader definition is adopted.

Asperger Syndrome a clinical account demonstrates Wing’s terrible sampling. In particular she writes that the three points that she used to find them are present in all people and these are the traits that rewrite autism as a spectrum.

Sorry for the backdrop, but the point is look at all of the additions and her final conclusion to clump lots of preexisting groups together to create the spectrum and you can see why there are so many “political groups”. You are going to find some things that need cures. Look at Heller’s work throughout the time line. Many are just normal people.

Maybe some more sifting through the literature up to now will help you explain many of the questions.

Sorry for the unfocused attempt to ask questions. The “Little Professor” in me prefers to lecture in person. And sorry for the grammar/spelling for the same reason.

There are studies that demonstrate that heavy metals are neurotoxic and demonstrate a clear correlation between vaccines and autism onset, these studies were deliberately dismissed and hidden by the CDC.

Let me take a wild guess: you’re talking about the Verstraeten study, right?

And your source for what the Verstraeten study purportedly found is RFK Jr.’s notorious “Deadly Immunity” article, right?

And because RFK Jr. swore so fervently that the transcript of the Simpsonwood conference proved that the CDC covered up “a clear correlation between vaccines and autism onset”, you never actually read the transcript yourself and found out that even though such a correlation was looked for, the Verstraeten study actually ruled it out?

Every time I hear about something like this, I cringe. CRINGE. Because I know what is going to follow: e-mails from well-meaning relatives about “cures” and “treatments,” questions about whether or not I vaccinated and if I do chelation, suggestions for vitamins and medications and therapies, etc, etc. It makes me so angry! I work very hard at making sure people treat my sons with dignity and respect and don’t treat them like side-shows and circus freaks. I try very hard to teach them to behave in public and learn how to function.

While this is no picnic (like Kristen, I’ve had my share of sleepness nights, cleaning-of-feces and the like) I wouldn’t have it any other way. Cure? Please. Six out of eight of my nieces/nephews are on the spectrum. Three of my sibling’s spouses are as well. Can you say genetics? I supposed now they are going to try to tell me that I can alter my kid’s genes by giving him industrial chemicals, right? I know there are a variety of causes, but in our case, I think it’s fairly obvious. And we don’t hate our kids or their disabilities. I dislike steaming my carpets so often but so what? I’m still a mom. There are no guarantees that when you have a kid, they will turn out perfect. I’m not blaming anyone. This is what I signed up for.

One sure way to screw up your blood serum is to put some chelating agent in you; it should officially be made a criminal offense to pump kids full of that stuff or to sell it as ingestible items. The only exception should be when a chelating or complexing agent is used as an established antidote for a known poison.

I find the approach taken by Boyd Haley to be abhorrent. I have no doubt that many people who consider using his product want to make things better for their child but this approach to care is insanely dangerous. I can’t recall how much money we have spent on additional therapy for our child with autism, but it has been money very well spend as it has equipped him to better understand and deal with the social situations around him. We did’t want to change him from who he is – and the autism is part of that, but he did need additional tools to help the world understand who he is. Parents who go down the path for a ‘cure’ that does not exist may well miss some amazing opportunities to see their child shine. It is ‘developmental delay’ not ‘developmental denied’.

Chris – dead right on the quality of some of the bloggers out there including The Domestic Goddess.

I wonder how many of these child torturing “parents” would fit the diagnostic criteria for munchausens by proxy?. They definitely seem to have clear traits, particularly the blithe disregard for the pain and suffering they cause their children with their endless pseudo medical “treatments”. All the biomed stuff has a level of discomfort, even if it’s just the fact that forcing a child to take multiple supplements can be distressing, not to mention the pain involved in restraining a child with autism in order to take blood.
When i read some of the parents accounts of how distressed their children are with the “treatments” being forced upon them i am struck by the utter lack of empathy for their childs distress.
It always seems to be about the parents and how hard their lives are, never mind how hard it might be for a child to live in a family where it’s parents, the people who should accept and love them, are instead intent on “fixing” them, seeing them as damaged units rather than kids with a developmental disorder ,little individuals who deserve care and respect.

Once again, The Tribune sheds light on dubious autism treatments. One point which I wish Ms. Tsouderos had mentioned were the
detrimental effects of chelation had on rats with no elevated levels of metal. One, if not the, reason that the NIH pulled the plug on the autism-chelation study.

So good, it had to be repeated.

And isn’t it interesting how the antivax crowd shows up all trying the same “industrial versions of chemicals are just like medical versions” gambit that has been beat down with great skill by the persons here with chemistry knowledge?

Next thing you know, someone will try to put toxic Fluorine in our water and toothpaste or aluminum and mercury in vaccines like the flu shot and call it a preservative even though the flu shot isn’t around long enough to need a preservative and vaccines are accompanied by toxic neutralizers, and carrying agents.

I see all of the silly stories that the mainstream media hypes up about lead or chromium in toys and jewelry and how toxic they are if children put them in their mouth but nevermind the toxic metals in the vaccine that enter the bloodstream without censoring by the liver.

Neurofreak: Do you really think that taking an unpopular stance on any issue causing the destruction of your entire career is a… reasonable thing? You sound kind of like you’re gloating, but I suppose the vitriolic tone is critical if a blog post is going to get much attention.

Orac: As for getting a lot of attention, well, that’s not the purpose of the vitriol.

I suspect that for scientists who become cranks (or “brave mavericks”, take your pick), getting a lot of attention is a major motivator. Who would have heard of Boyd Haley if he hadn’t become a hero to health conspiracy devotees?

The information provided by Anne at #94 makes it clear why the FDA rejected Boyd Haley’s New Dietary Ingredient application:

1. His product does not meet the legal definition of a dietary ingredient.
2. He never supplied the FDA with sufficient evidence that his product is safe.

Boyd Haley, through his company CTI Science Inc. is marketing an illegal (adulterated) product. This makes him subject to serious penaties, including product seizure, fines, and imprisonment. The FDA has full legal authority to seize this product and bring criminal charges against Boyd Haley. Anyone wishing to complain to the FDA about it’s lax enforcement should contact the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. The CFSAN is responsible for enforcing the New Dietary Ingredient regulations which are part of 1994’s DSHEA.

Anyone wishing to understand the FDA’s culture of DSHEA non-enforcement should read this eye-opening piece by Peter Barton Hutt, former chief counsel for the FDA:

Insults? I didn’t start it. I don’t even know what “a nutter going on about a tempest in a teapot” means but it does not sound like a compliment.

I can without a doubt prove that many of the ingredients in vaccines are in fact toxic. It’s just common sense. Mercury…toxic! Aluminum…toxic! Squalene…toxic! Consider synergistic values, extremely toxic.

Can you prove that vaccines work?

I mean you?

Can YOU personally prove that vaccines work?

Any idiot can prove the ingredients are toxic, can you prove the antigen works the way it is supposed to and that is all is does considering the synergistic nature of all the toxic ingredients hitch hiking a ride?

Did you really expect to post your silliness here without someone questioning? How toxic are vaccine compared to tetanospasmin (which may be an issue now in Haiti)?

All pediatric vaccines are available without thimerosal, even though there is no evidence that the amount in vaccine causes any real harm. Your concerns about mercury are too 1999. You are a decade out of date!

Dude, if your body did not have squalene you would be dead. If you really want to live without squalene, remove your own liver… and then die. Why do you think something your body makes and you need to live is toxic?

Also, how do you live on a planet where the most common metal on the surface is aluminum? So you don’t drink from aluminum cans? You don’t eat pickles? How do you do not walk on the dirt where much of the stuff in it is aluminum compounds? Also you breathe and eat more aluminum per day than is in any vaccine. How do you avoid that?

Tetanospasmin may be an issue in Haiti or any impoverished country that has recently seen a catastrophic disaster and go ahead and roll out your tetanus shot but it doesn’t make sense for the average little obese American boy or girl.

You said “the aluminum in vaccines is not the plentiful shiny white stuff naturally found on earth”…. What form of insanity makes you think one of the more reactive metals on the earth’s surface is evident as just “shiny white stuff”? Are you that daft? Perhaps as borax, but certainly not has the other forms it comes in! Certainly not in the form of corundum used in sand paper, which can also look like sapphires and rubies.

Also, many vaccines do not have aluminum. The MMR vaccine does contain thimerosal nor aluminum. So what evidence do you have that the MMR is worse than the complications from measles, mumps and rubella.

Do try, this time, to use actual scientific evidence. Give the journal, title, author and date of the paper that supports your premise.

Javier, this is a mostly American blog. Even though many of the participants (like you, perhaps) live outside of the USA, you should be reminded that squalene is not yet approved for use in vaccines in the USA. Please remember that and only refer to the precursor to cholesterol in that vein.

Also, even the influenza vaccine is available without thimerosal. So do try to state your concerns that are real, based on fact and with evidence.

First of all, let me point out the tactics attempting to be used here. I have made several attempts to question vaccine safety and the ingredients and the usuall comeback is “The MMR vaccine does not contain thimerosal nor aluminum. So what evidence do you have that the MMR is worse than the complications from measles, mumps and rubella.”

That is the good old standby for the pro vaxers…boo hoo the MMR never contained mercury.

What does the MMR contain? Just good ole fashion goodness I presume?

“Javier, this is a mostly American blog. Even though many of the participants (like you, perhaps) live outside of the USA, you should be reminded that squalene is not yet approved for use in vaccines in the USA.”

Mostly American? What am I? An Alien?

Why do you keep pointing out vaccines that are mercury free? Guilt? Doubt?

Because my name is Javier, I can’t live on main street in Iowa and just be concerned about vaccine safety?

My my my, Javier. Chris certainly did make you angry, however, he’s probibly not as condescending to ignorance as I am. So, lets start this out with a little basic lesson in biochemistry.

Thiomerisol is not the same as elemental or methyl mercury. It metabolizes into ethylmercury. Thiomerisol, C9H9HgNaO2S, is eliminated from the brain in around 3 or 4 days, and excreted with other metabolic wastes. It doesn’t bioaccumulate, and doesn’t cause the bioaccumulative damage. It’s only toxic in very large doses, doses far above that which you would recieve in a vaccine. The EPA exposure limit was written for people who are exposed to the substance on a near-chronic (long term) limit. In addition, the only vaccine given to children which contain the compound would be the multidose flu vaccines. Even then, since the removal of thiomerisol from pediatric vaccines, the rates of autism have skyrocketed, flying in the face of the “toxin” theory. Even if these children DID have mercury poisoning, they’d have other symptoms besides emotional problems and behavioral disorders – From Wikipedia:

Chris doesn’t have to prove vaccines work – it’s a commonly accepted scientific fact that has been vindicated and proven over the past two hundred years by repeated examinations of records, scientific studies, and medical trials. It is you who are presenting extraordinary claims against that, rather that “Vaccines are ineffective”, which a simple internet search would prove wrong. You want personal proof vaccines work? I got my HepB vaccine in high school while a CNA – I then had a titer drawn and found I had antibodies to Hep B. I’ve somehow managed to not get it, despite being exposed by an accidental needlestick! Hmm, must have been all that immune system boosting that I do on a daily basis.

Tetnus is INDEED a problem in a first world society, and has been made largely non-issue through the use of tetnus vaccines. It’s not a very pleasent infection to get, as one of the pediatric patients in our local PICU could attest to. Vaccines could have prevented that.

Every time I hear about something like this, I cringe. CRINGE. Because I know what is going to follow: e-mails from well-meaning relatives about “cures” and “treatments,” questions about whether or not I vaccinated and if I do chelation, suggestions for vitamins and medications and therapies, etc, etc. It makes me so angry! I work very hard at making sure people treat my sons with dignity and respect and don’t treat them like side-shows and circus freaks. I try very hard to teach them to behave in public and learn how to function.

I know what you mean, I feel the same way. That is why I am so glad I found this community, it is so nice to not have the bio-med treatments shoved down my throat.

When I needed to get a sitter for my son, which I have never done before, I was reminded why I avoid the support groups. Seems one is not a good mother if they don’t buy into the quack ‘treatments’. I don’t even try to argue with them anymore because my view is so unpopular.

I don’t get that from my family, though. They only want to worry about their ‘normal’ grandchildren.

the science part of science is also about toppling the current groupthink

Funny, I don’t recall ever reading that in any textbook presentation of the scientific method. What I recall reading had lots to do with repeatable experiment/observation, which is exactly what is lacking for OSR#1, but has been done extensively in the case of vaccines, including quite specifically and repeatedly searching for any increased autism incidence associated with their administration. (Yes, I realize it is an article of faith among the anti-vaccine community that these varied and extensive studies must never, ever, be credited for one or more creative – or created, i.e., made up – reasons.)

I think it’s time parents realize that there is no “cure” for autism, and that hard work and long hours must be put in by loving and patient parents to make sure the child becomes a happy and healthy member of society. The kind of quick fix offered by Haley is indeed appalling: he preys on desperate parents to make chunk change. Were he really honest about his product, he would submit to double-blind scientific research, within which autism is already a huge priority. Look at the Mind Institute for one. It’s time society understand autism not as a crippling, stigmatizing disorder so much as a different mode of cognition with difficulties in development unique to each child affected. One place to gain a proper understanding of autism is with the work of Temple Grandin, an autistic animal scientist and philosopher. Her perspective on the disorder is nuanced and refreshing:

(sorry for the random off-topicness & TMI)
I get a bit confused (although I shouldn’t be) and happy every time I keep stumbling across posts by parents or carers that berate others for treating children as if they’re “subhuman”. I’m not on the autism spectra as far as I know, but I have several good friends who are. While it’s blindingly obvious that they’re “real” people who have proper personalities, and always had, I’ve grown up with a double standard for myself vs the rest of the world. I grew up being treated as damaged and inferior goods by my family. The great irony here lies in that my mother helps autistic children and the like for a living, and apparently is damned good at it too. Many parents have over the years been immensely grateful for how their children seem to relax and “blossom” thanks to her (I’ve even come across letters to her, this isn’t something my mother ever claimed). Makes me feel like some brat whose parents are brain-surgeons or the like, and has no right to have developed PTSD. Ah well. While I come to these science blogs for some sanity in a world where too many are opposed to reason and science, comments that even further showcase the compassion of fellow humans are a lovely bonus.

You said “the aluminum in vaccines is not the plentiful shiny white stuff naturally found on earth”…. What form of insanity makes you think one of the more reactive metals on the earth’s surface is evident as just “shiny white stuff”? Are you that daft?

What the heck is “shiney white stuff” that is aluminum?

Most of the aluminum on earth is in the form of aluminum oxide, which is absolutely the same thing in vaccines. However, whereas it is a white powder, I don’t know where the “shiney” comes from. Aluminum metal is shiny, mostly, but still with an oxide layer. Aluminum metal is not at all abundant on earth, and is, in fact, very expensive to produce (which is why aluminum is recycled – it is cheaper to recycle than to make from the oxide). Getting shiny aluminum is hard, although Alcoa can do it well.

So what ARE the rules for the scrutiny of supplements? I know they are less strict, but I am surprised that it matters whether a compound was developed for an industrial purpose versus any other purpose.

It doesn’t matter where it comes from. The terminology describes to what level it has been tested. This product has not been tested (or at least the manufacturer has curiously declined to make testing information avaialble) to the degree neccesary to market it as a food additive. Therefore, from the standpoint of regulation, it falls under the rubric of industrial chemicals, where the manufacturer is just obliged to make basic safety and handling information available to users. The MSDS, in other words, though I believe the main enforcement entity there is the threat of lawsuits. (Note: some chemicals fall under more than one category, and there are more than just these two. A chemical can exist in industrial, food, and pharmaceutical forms. You can get industrial gelatin, for instance, and also food-grade gelatin.)

So we’re talking legal definitions here.

That’s not the point, though. The point is that the AoA folks rail against the use of what they (wrongly) call “industrial chemicals” in the process of vaccine manufacture. Yet they are content with the use of *actual* industrial chemicals (by the legal definition) to treat autism. This is definitely hypocritical, and Orac is right to call them on it.

Jeff Mahr @ 110:

Not that this discussion needs any more fuel, but what do we all think about EDTA, a chelator that is commonly found in foods (and many of my buffers in the lab)?

EDTA is very widely used as an industrial chemical, and also as a food additive and cosmetic ingredient (where it is under more regulation than as an industrial chemical — foods and cosmetics get roughly the same level of regulation). It is also available as a pharmaceutical. Really. EDTA is not readily absorbed through the skin or gut, which is why it is so safe to use in shampoos and things. But if you inject it into the bloodstream, it can function as a chelating agent. Certain forms of it (Disodium EDTA, for example) are approved to treat lead poisoning. The patient is hooked up to an IV and given the drug, and closely monitored for signs of hypocalcemia, a potentially fatal condition (as it makes it impossible for muscles to contract and thus can irreversibly stop the heart — CPR works in this case, but defibrillators do not). And indeed, there have been deaths due to this problem. A famous recent case was an autistic five-year-old boy named Abubakar Tariq Nadama. His parents brought him to the US at great expense, where he ended up dying of hypocalcemia after receiving EDTA in just about the most dangerous way possible — a direct “push” (where instead of receiving a drip, the whole dose is injected at once).

There is a disturbingly large number of quack chelationists. These are doctors who use chelators, usually intravenous EDTA but sometimes other drugs (and as noted in the OP, sometimes chemicals not approved as drugs or even food additives), to treat conditions other than heavy metal poisoning. Conditions for which there is no evidence it works. The first such indication was atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries, which is a major risk factor for heart disease). The idea was that EDTA could strip away the calcium in the arterial plaques, essentially cleaning them out from the inside without risky procedures like angioplasty. But stripping calcium is dangerous, as noted above, so this isn’t without risk. And, sadly, studies proved that EDTA was ineffective. Recently, scientists found out why: dead arterial cells clump around the plaque, forming a barrier which is just as impervious to EDTA as the intestines and skin are. It can’t reach the calcium to chelate it out. But clinics still exist which do good business treating atherosclerosis with a treatment which is both dangerous and proven ineffective. And now they have a new market: claiming to remove mercury from autistic children. But there is no objective evidence this does anything helpful for autism.

So yes, EDTA is used in situations similar to the one described in the OP. And it’s dangerous. It does have one advantage over OSR in that it actually has undergone the level of testing required to be marketed as a drug, but it’s no more effective in treating autism (and it has some very nasty side effects, even ignoring the whole “might stop your heart” thing — there are ways to deal with the cardiac arrest problem, but it’s still tough on the kidneys; heck, I doubt there are any chelators which aren’t tough on the kidneys).

Random factoid: I know one common chelating agent which is available in food: oxalic acid. It’s what makes rhubarb so wonderfully tart and delicious. It’s also what makes rhubarb leaves lethally poisonous. Unlike EDTA, it *is* absorbed by the gut, and it has a high affinity for calcium. In low amounts, this can cause precipitation in the kidneys and bladder, leading to kidney and bladder stones. In high amounts, this can kill you. At the very least, if you’ve ever had rhubarb with dairy, have you noticed a sort of gritty sensation? That’s calcium precipitating out of the milk because it has been chelated by the oxalic acid. I don’t know whether oxalic acid is approved as a food additive; I doubt it, given that people with kidney disease have to avoid vegetables high in it. But it does naturally occur in a variety of foods (most famously rhubarb but also a number of leafy greens).

Next thing you know, someone will try to put toxic Fluorine in our water and toothpaste or aluminum and mercury in vaccines like the flu shot and call it a preservative even though the flu shot isn’t around long enough to need a preservative and vaccines are accompanied by toxic neutralizers, and carrying agents.

I see all of the silly stories that the mainstream media hypes up about lead or chromium in toys and jewelry and how toxic they are if children put them in their mouth but nevermind the toxic metals in the vaccine that enter the bloodstream without censoring by the liver.

The levels of toxic metals in most of those cases are much, much higher than you’d get in a vaccine. Also, there isn’t any lead or cadmium in vaccines. As far as why flu shots need a preservative, they most certainly are around long enough to need one. It’s not so much how long they sit on the shelf between manufacture and first use; it’s what gets pushed in when the first needle is stuck into the vial. And clinics and hospitals do get some interesting pathogens, thanks to the fact that sick people have to go there. I wouldn’t want MRSA with my flu shot, and you probably wouldn’t either.

Javier @ 117:

Tetanospasmin may be an issue in Haiti or any impoverished country that has recently seen a catastrophic disaster and go ahead and roll out your tetanus shot but it doesn’t make sense for the average little obese American boy or girl.

Actually, Clostridium tetani, the bacterium responsible for tetanus, is endemic to the entire world. It is not dependent on humans; the fact that it kills us is entirely coincidental. (In this respect, it is very much like its infamous cousin, Clostridium botulinum.) There is therefore no part of the world where you can consider yourself safe from tetanus, although it is more common in regions with damp, rich soil (e.g. Haiti). The US has a high rate of vaccination, but still sees about a hundred cases a year, a few of which are fatal. (You can avoid death from tetanus by use of mechanical ventilation, artificial feeding, and the antitoxin. It’s a pretty ugly disease.)

Just to make things worse, tetanus is one of those rare disease where catching it doesn’t produce natural immunity. So if you managed to survive a case of tetanus, you are still vulnerable to it.

Chris @ 102:
I’d love to have tea with everybody! I hang out a lot over at the space.com messageboards (though not as much lately; gotten too busy). Highly recommended, though, if you are at all interested in space geekery.

@ 57
“(You’d have to experience incurable illness yourself in order to understand their situation. (No need to endorse their “treatments”, though.))”

There is a difference between having relatives with an incurable illness and actually having an incurable illness yourself. As someone with diabetic relatives who later developed diabetes myself, I personally know the difference.

Javier reminds me of John Best: quick on the insults, short on the evidence.

As to AoA and Ms. Stagliano’s article, I submitted a comment asking people where I could find the studies showing OSR’s safety, as CTI’s site doesn’t have anything. Let’s see if it makes it past moderation, and, if it does, what kind of reception it gets.

“Does it ever occur to these people that they’re pumping industrial chemicals into their kids? What the hell is wrong with these idiots?!”

Oh good, so we all agree that industrial chemicals shouldn’t be given to children, which means that acetaminophen and FD&C food colorings should be promptly removed from the market, since they’re both derived from coal tar, which is also an “industrial chemical” right?

What they’re derived from is irrelevant; the level of safety testing is what matters. Acetaminophen and food colorings have been subjected to, respectively, the drug and food additive levels of scrutiny – both far more intensive than the industrial chemical level.

There really isn’t even the appearance of an analogy. Only the most superficial reading without any thought whatsoever could conclude there was any similarity.

Javier reminds me of John Best: quick on the insults, short on the evidence.

He probably just goes to anti-vax sites like AoA, which are echo chambers. More than likely he has never had anyone challenge him. If you think he was fun, you should see the guys who were upset over PalMD’s questioning the practice of a doctor (Crisler) over at WhiteCoatUnderground.

I personally think Pharma is like the Big Banks. Too big to fail and big enough to lie however it needs to. Merck did a LOT of shady shit with Vioxx. It is well documented, look it up. How much of a leap is it to think if Merck can lie about one thing then it can lie about another(vaccines)? (I know Merck isn’t the only maker of vaccines, so please don’t go off on a tangent there Pablo, Kristen, etc!)
I think Orac and his devoted followers are smart people but you have a blind side. The blind side is your belief in “science.” Science = good studies, proof. However, science can be skewed. Your smart, you realize that, right? Just like you complain AoA skews science in their favor when they need it – you do the same crime. It boils down to this – if you entertain the thought that vaccines are bad and I’ve been grossly lied to about the benefits and risks then it EXPLODES the world you believe in. And most people don’t want to go there. You believe what you were taught in school or taught as an MD, which is very much influenced by government. You want to believe that gov’t cares about us, that the CDC has our best interest at heart (instead of reality which is having the Former CDC Director Julie Gerberding go work for the vaccine dept of Merck – why don’t you post about THAT one Orac??)
You all are simply too afraid to be wrong so you scream, shout and tout your studies that may or may not be “skewed” to be right. I wish you’d open your eyes a bit. This world isn’t the peer-reviewed, double-blind study approved world you think it is.

It’s been pointed out before in this thread but it bears repeating: chemicals used in industry can have various by-products and other impurities which are irrelevant to their industrial use but might well be highly relevant to ingestion by humans. So the “industrial” label is hardly irrelevant.

Yes, and they got caught. Hiding evidence that vaccines are harmful would require a vastly greater conspiracy than Merck attempted with Vioxx, involving collusion between not only multiple drug companies, but also numerous governments, including those with a vested financial interest in reducing the amount of money they give to drug companies, and a huge number of academics.

“You all are simply too afraid to be wrong so you scream, shout and tout your studies that may or may not be “skewed” to be right.”

Major strawman there. We (and this blog) look at all the evidence, including that which may not support our views, and do not discount it as “skewed” simply because it doesn’t fit in with known facts. We also recognize that some “research” is deeply flawed (in the case of vaccines, this applies heavily to antivax “research” of the sort produced by the Geiers and Andrew Wakefield).

“I wish you’d open your eyes a bit.”

A bit of a jolt to the irony meter there, but I think it’s still functioning.

I personally think Pharma is like the Big Banks. Too big to fail and big enough to lie however it needs to. Merck did a LOT of shady shit with Vioxx. It is well documented, look it up. How much of a leap is it to think if Merck can lie about one thing then it can lie about another(vaccines)? (I know Merck isn’t the only maker of vaccines, so please don’t go off on a tangent there Pablo, Kristen, etc!)

That’s not a bad analogy, except that I think the pharmaceutical companies are even hardier than the banks (re: “too big to fail”) because they aren’t so vulnerable to the sorts of investment-related problems that killed so many financial powerhouses.

You are right: Merck and Vioxx are an example of why we can’t trust these companies. Or any company, really. That’s why we rely on science instead. I do not take Merck’s word for it that vaccines work. I look to the science instead. And though I do not trust any corporation further than I can comfortably spit out a rat, I am more inclined to use the products of a pharmaceutical corporation than an unapproved drug prepared according to industrial standards only. This is not becuase I trust Big Pharma more. It’s because at least somebody is watching them. Nobody’s watching clowns like Prof Haley, or at least, nobody’s following through when there’s evidence of shenanigans.

Bottom line: ALL companies that sell health products have reason to lie to you, whether they sell them as drugs or as food supplements with weasel-worded claims of health benefits. Therefore, all of them should be subject to regulation so that there is some mechanism (however imperfect) for detecting and punishing shenanigans.

This isn’t really as hypocritical as it seems at first blush. These are just people who cannot fathom self-blame or bad luck, so they jump on anti-establishment bandwagons instead. So one person tells them the medical establishment turned their kid autistic with mandatory chemicals and they jump on. Then someone else tells them that same medical establishment is hiding a simple supplemental cure and of course they jump again. There’s no reasoning here (‘one chemical is bad, maybe two are good!’) at all. I wouldn’t be surprised if these people also tended to believe in 9/11 consipiracies, bigfoot, global warming and God more than the national average for exactly the same reason.

I find myself unable to muster energy to refute the specifics of Javier’s ramblings. Too much like arguing with a loud drunk!!

as for L HARPER’s conspiracy tinged postings…
I do find myself sort of wondering.. WHERE would be an acceptable place for “Former CDC Director Julie Gerberding” to find work, after having served the country in the CDC..
would some other pharm company be acceptable? should she have left medicine all together? If she had taken a board seat as a Blue Cross trustee, would that be acceptable, or just “part of the BigBLUE conspiracy” to defeat national health insurance? WHAT would you have suggested, Mr. HARPER?

Nobody trusts Big Pharma, which is why they’re regulated up the wazoo in the first place and smacked down when they get out of line. Nobody has blind faith in science, which is why it gets the crap constantly kicked out of it to see what crumbles and what’s left standing. Get back to us when your beloved cranks are willing to man up and take the same treatment.

This world isn’t the peer-reviewed, double-blind study approved world you think it is.

Don’t forget reproducible. If nobody can reproduce the results of a study (and a lot of work goes into doing just that), it’s results are pointless. But after five or so other teams, working in different locations, with reasonably close results, then you can start to say what works, what doesn’t, and you get a lot closer to finding out the truth.

Science = good studies, proof.

True dat. But only if you can describe how someone else can do the same thing, and if they then go ahead and *do* it.

Shove thimerosal up your pizote ass! IT’S CALLED MERCURY AND IT’S NOT SAFE AT ANY LEVEL, AT ANY WEIGHT, AT ANY AGE.

You must be either very young, very ignorant, or both to believe such nonsense. When I was growing up, our mothers dabbed mercury antiseptic on every cut and scrape, giving it direct access to the bloodstream. I, and many of my friends used to play with liquid mercury as children (Did you know that you can float a penny on top of mercury? We thought it was very cool). Yet if you believe the statistics, my generation had less autism than modern kids. Frankly it would be more reasonable to believe that autism is caused by insufficient mercury exposure.

flim flam wrote: “I wonder how many of these child torturing “parents” would fit the diagnostic criteria for munchausens by proxy?”

I wonder too. They seem to take all too much glee in concocting their own little regimens of treatments, supplements, and quack therapies, and they seem to take the attitude that the measure of an autism parent is how many of these one’s child can be made to bear simultaneously.

L. Harper (like a lot of people) seems to think that science is “something said by a scientist”, rather than the results of applying the scientific method.

“Science can be skewed”? No, not really. Results can be misrepresented, stories can be spun, people can lie – none of that changes the science. Which is why precisely why belief in the science is not a “blind side”.

Re: On a tangent…
I don’t think it’s just in regard to autism-spectrum children. My mother is also a very good and highly regarded teacher for (neurotypical) middle-school children. However, when she taught me (more neurotypical than not) at that age, she used far more abusive and, almost certainly, far less effective methods. I’ve seen this with other parents too. I think she identified a lot with my success or failure, and she couldn’t tolerate the normal initial failures and misunderstandings that accompanied learning, causing her to treat me with anger. The fact that other people’s children don’t learn things instantly doesn’t bother her, so she’s able to be a much more patient and understanding teacher. Part of the “American dream” is having one’s children live better lives than one did. Many people spend a lot of time and money on their children to give them “all the advantages [the parents] never had.” I can understand, intellectually, how much it must hurt someone who’s bought into this dream to hear that their child can never achieve it. Still, these are the parents who were bound to be disappointed by their children some time or another- these are the kinds of parents who feel that their children are ruined when they major in art instead of pre-law. The people I really feel sorry for are the children.

“You used census.gov to prove vaccines work? I asked, can YOU prove vaccines work? Unless your name in census, you got some proving to do.”

I think the lack of free range small pox is a good example of the fact that vaccines work. Unless you think all the little small pox viral particles got together and decided to leave town all on their own at the same time as a world-wide vaccination program was taking place.

You must be either very young, very ignorant, or both to believe such nonsense. When I was growing up, our mothers dabbed mercury antiseptic on every cut and scrape, giving it direct access to the bloodstream. I, and many of my friends used to play with liquid mercury as children (Did you know that you can float a penny on top of mercury? We thought it was very cool). Yet if you believe the statistics, my generation had less autism than modern kids. Frankly it would be more reasonable to believe that autism is caused by insufficient mercury exposure

Oh the memories that brings back. The Methiolate fear…the ability to hide all sorts of cuts from your mother to keep that da** stinging stuff away from you…and the fun it was to paint it all over intact skin. Turned you a really cool red color.

We didn’t play with broken thermometers very often; my mother disliked the mess. But it was fun to poke mercury and watch the little balls.

Maybe you are right, and it’s the LACK of mercury exposure causing increased autism levels.

Remember that there is a definite link between aluminum intake and some diseases like Alzheimer’s. Wether you like it or not, chelation works better than heart surgery and other dangerous procedures. Pharma companies just love to hate supplements. Look no further than the money trail.

Chelation therapy is a safe, effective way to rid the body of excess toxins, particularly metals. Chelators draw out toxic metals and other harmful substances that impair body function, and help the body eliminate these toxins via the kidneys. Oral chelation agents can help prevent problems from occurring by restoring circulation to the body’s tissues.

Chelation therapy is also used in the treatment of atherosclerosis and other circulatory disorders as well as gangrene, which often is the result of poor circulation. In atherosclerosis, deposits of cholesterol, fats, and other substances collect on the walls large and medium sized arteries in the form of hard plaque. It has been found that calcium is the glue that holds the plaque together. Chelating agents bind with this calcium and carry it out of the body breaking up the plaque deposits, unclogging the arteries, and permitting more normal blood flow.

Among other disorders that may be helped by chelation therapy are multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s, and arthritis.

EDTA

Supports cardiovascular health. EDTA, has been show in clinical studies to bind metal ions from the arteries and veins through its powerful chelating capability. Methly-Sulfonyl-Methane (MSM) and N-Acetyl-Cysteine (NAC) are two sulfur-donating compounds that increase cellular glutathione concentrations, which is important for increased antioxidant needs during chelation. Along with Vitamin C, these compounds work together to provide optimum nutritional support for cardiovascular health. EDTA is often used to remove plaque buildup and heavy metal toxins in the artery walls. EDTA can be obtained through IV from a physician or orally from most vitamin manufacturers.

Alfalfa

Detoxifies the liver and alkalizes the body, chelates toxic substances from the body.

Apple Pectin

Binds with unwanted toxic metals and removes them from the body through the intestinal tract.

Magnesium

Displaces calcium within the cells of the artery walls. It is a major factor in blocking calcium from entering the cells of the arterial lining.

You must have missed the comment earlier on about EDTA being a failure on arteriosclerosis, or not being absorbed when taken orally. But then, you’re happily alkalizing your body and killing all the nasty free radicals, so you’re protected.

Isn’t ORAC some kind of insurance…oh wait that’s AFLAC…So what does ORAC stand for…Opinionated and Retarded Ass Clown? It’s very ironic that what you are “claiming” Dr. Haley is doing wrong doesn’t even compare to how thimerosal was introduced you hypocritical douche bag. Why don’t you do some research into and do a blog entry on the “extensive” testing thimerosal went through prior to being injected into every child on the planet. I challenge you to do this. I can’t wait to hear what you find, and if you are one of those that say we have been using it forever and this is proof it doesn’t cause any harm, then I suggest you look at the Autism rates. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that of the first 11 children diagnosed with Autism, the oldest was born in 1931. 1931 was the year thimerosal was introduced into vaccines. Coincidence? Let me know what you find out…

Thank you, but I don’t think you’ll get penetration here. These people doubt the sky is blue and the grass is green without their so called “peer reveiwed” stuff to aprrove their ideas. The only way to get through that there are alternatives to dangerous medicines and big Pharma is to drill a hole in their head and pour the information in and plug up the hole before it tries to escape that great big cavity.

Someone on here criticized me for mentioning EDTA. It can possibly be dangerous (but not as deadly as open heart surgery) but I know it works. There was a 62 year old man who had clogged arteries. The expert doctor told him he would have to have four bypasses. He went to Memphis and opted to have EDTA chelation therapy six times through an IV. Guess what. No heart surgery. His clogged arteries were no longer an issue.

Of course Cholsterol ha ssomething to do with it but calcium depsoits on the walls is what starts collecting this biuldup in the first place. Magnesium can actually help prevent this. Yet, big pharma silnces people and guess who the libs are in bed with? BIG PHARMA. How many universities get money from big pharma? How many “scientific research” programs get funded by big pharma? See where i am going with this? Follow the money and you’ll know who’s doing what right.

Worlds Best Doctor:
There’s lots I could say in response to your post, but I will confine myself to this: if a manufacturer has sold you EDTA as a nutritional supplement, then you have been had. It isn’t absorbed by the gut (which is precisely why the FDA allows it in food and cosmetics), which means that oral EDTA is useless for treatment of atherosclerosis.

Not that intravenous EDTA is any better; it doesn’t penetrate arterial plaques. It’s great at chelating calcium, though. Ask the parents of Abubakar Tariq Nadama. OF course, they were using disodium EDTA, which has high affinity for calcium. Calcium EDTA is somewhat safer, and is preferred for treatment of lead poisoning. Wouldn’t help people looking for help with atherosclerosis, though; the whole concept there is chelation of calcium ions.

I’ve never heard of garlic being a chelating agent. Mind you, “garlic” isn’t a recognized compound. It’s a plant containing hundreds of compounds. Which one do you claim is a chelator? As far as Vitamin C being a chelator — it ain’t. Certainly not a “powerful” chelator. (If it were, it’s hard to see how our species could exist.) It does not fit the definition. It *is* an anti-oxidant. Also a pro-oxidant, oddly enough.

I have no clue why you bring up the rest of your laundry list of plants and vitamins which you claim have amazing detoxifying powers. They’re not relevant, nor supported by data. It’s pretty random.

See where i am going with this? Follow the money and you’ll know who’s doing what right.

See above:

Boyd Haley, president of the Lexington, Ky.-based company that produces the compound, acknowledged its industrial origins but calls his product “a food” that is “totally without toxicity.” He said he has been taking the supplement for nearly three years.

and:

In January 2008 Haley changed the name of his company from Chelator Technologies Inc. to CTI Science Inc. Less than a month later, he notified the FDA he would be introducing the compound as a new dietary ingredient.

I believe the money flow is pointing directly towards Boyd Haley. Just like it did a decade ago when he was cashing in the the dentel amalgam scare (he had another company that sold tests and cures). He seems to have found more panic and deeper pockets in the parents of disabled children.

Say what you will. Chelation works. Frankly I don;t really care if some people don’t believe me. It’s their body and their decision. I’ve made mine. They are free to make theirs. I’ll take chelation any day of the week. You do what you want, just don’t expect me to pay for it.

Fish oil reduces inflammation in the arteries, lowers cholesterol/triglycerides, and is a natural blood thinner. The Omega-3 fatty acids help lower LDL cholesterol and contribute to functions that help thin blood and decrease plaque along the artery walls, improving blood circulation.

L-Methionine

Helps prevent fatty buildup in the arteries.

Pycnogenol (Pine bark Extract)

Found to be more effective than aspirin in reducing buildup of platelets in the arteries. CAN YOU SAY PLAVIX?

EDTA (CHELATION)

In recent years, researchers have found that chronic inflammation in the blood vessels is a central factor in the development of heart disease. This chronic inflammation leads to arterial wall damage and the resulting plaque formation. Although cholesterol levels have some importance, it appears that this substance is not the “villain” that it was once thought to be. While diet and lifestyle factors are root causes of chronic inflammation, there are also genetic reasons beyond inheriting a disposition to high cholesterol levels. They include one’s levels of homocysteine and lipoprotein(a) and other heredity factors. Fortunately, these genetic susceptibilities can be reduced through natural therapies. Stealth or hidden infections in the body are also suspected in increasing the inflammatory response. Therefore, it is imperative you are tested for these newer, more predictive markers of heart disease. Finally, the impact of stress and negative emotions cannot be underrated as a cause of heart disease, in addition to the physical causes.

Worlds Best Doctor:
You are of course free to do what you want with your body. But I will not let dangerous misinformation be presented as medical advice without offering my own opinion. So far, for evidence, you have presented exactly one anecdote, which is not verifiable, and for which you have given no data to say why you believe that the gentleman’s atherosclerosis was really treated. Not everyone with atherosclerosis will have a heart attack, so his failure to die doesn’t mean the treatment worked.

I’m still curious why you think Vitamin C and garlic are chelators. Do you know what a chelator actually is?

Vitamin C is known for its outstanding antioxidant and immune boosting properties. It is essential for healthy blood vessels and sound teeth and bones. It is also essential for the production of collagen and helps protect against free radicals to protect cells. Vitamin C’s major role is to make collagen, the main protein substance of the human body that holds connective tissues together in skin, bone, teeth, and other parts of the body. Vitamin C is also critical for the proper function of our immune system, for manufacturing certain nerve transmitting substances and hormones, and for the absorption and utilization of other nutrients, such as Vitamin E and Iron. Vitamin C is also a very important and powerful antioxidant that works in the aqueous (water) environments of the body, such as the lungs and lens of the eye. Its primary antioxidant partners are Vitamin E and the carotenes, as well as working along with the antioxidant enzymes. Vitamin C regenerates oxidized Vitamin E, and restores the antioxidant potential of Vitamin E in the body. Chewable Vitamin C is recommended to be part of a daily regimen. Vitamin C is a water-soluble vitamin that functions as a powerful antioxidant. Acting as an antioxidant, one of vitamin C’s important functions is to protect LDL cholesterol from oxidative damage. (Only when LDL is damaged, does cholesterol appear to lead to heart disease, and vitamin C may be the most important antioxidant protector of LDL.) Vitamin C is needed to make collagen, the “glue” that strengthens many parts of the body, such as muscles and blood vessels. Vitamin C also plays important roles in wound healing and as a natural antihistamine. This vitamin also aids in the formation of liver bile and helps to fight viruses and to detoxify alcohol and other substances. Although vitamin C appears to have only a small effect in preventing the common cold, it reduces the duration and severity of a cold. Large amounts of vitamin C (e.g., 1–8 grams daily) taken at the onset of a cold episode shorten the duration of illness by an average of 23%. Recently, researchers have shown that vitamin C improves nitric oxide activity. Nitric oxide is needed for the dilation of blood vessels, potentially important in lowering blood pressure and preventing spasm of arteries in the heart that might otherwise lead to heart attacks. Vitamin C has reversed dysfunction of cells lining blood vessels. The normalization of the functioning of these cells may be linked to prevention of heart disease. Evidence indicates that vitamin C levels in the eye decrease with age and that supplementing with vitamin C prevents this decrease, leading to a lower risk of developing cataracts. Healthy people have been reported to be more likely to take vitamin C and vitamin E supplements than those with cataracts in some, but not all, studies. Vitamin C has been reported to reduce activity of the enzyme aldose reductase in people. Aldose reductase is the enzyme responsible for accumulation of sorbitol in eyes, nerves, and kidneys of people with diabetes. This accumulation is believed to be responsible for deterioration of these parts of the body associated with diabetes. Therefore, interference with the activity of aldose reductase theoretically helps protect people with diabetes. Studies show that vitamin C supplementation reduces eye pressure.

LECITHIN

Lecithin is a natural substance found in cell membranes and is manufactured in the liver from dietary choline. It contains a mixture of phosphatides, including phosphatidyl choline, an important precursor to a main neurotransmitter, acetylcholine. In addition, the body utilizes lecithin both for the proper formation of bile (the body’s main emulsifying compound), and as an emulsifying agent itself. As an emulsifier, lecithin helps in the absorption and utilization of fat-soluble nutrients, such as vitamins A, D, E and K. Lecithin has for decades, been a popular treatment for high cholesterol. More recently, Lecithin has been proposed as a remedy for various physiological and neurological diseases, such as Tourette’s syndrome, Alzheimer’s disease, and bipolar disorder. It also helps break down fats in the blood and is good for mental alertness. Outstanding fat emulsifier for healthy lipid levels and cardiovascular maintenance. Why Lecithin, every single cell in the body needs it to function is the major reason. And as a one of the body’s most productive “go-getters”, Lecithin plays a substantial role in virtually every biological function known to human existence. This natural source of Choline, Inositol, Linoleic Acid and Phosphatidyl Serine is fundamental in the transportation of nutrients to-and-from other cells – thus making it a key factor in how effectively we metabolize the food in our diet. Lecithin is composed of a group of phosphorus containing fats or phospholipids the most important being phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylinositol, and phosphatidylethanolamine. Lecithin can be found in a variety of foods including egg yolks, milk, meats, fish, and legumes. Since our intake of some of these foods has been reduced due to cholesterol and fat concerns we have concomitantly reduced our intake of this important nutrient. Every living cell contains these phospholipids and the functioning of our nervous system is particularly compromised if we are inadequate in lecithin’s key ingredients. Deficiencies are linked to a variety of neurological disorders. Phosphatidylcholine builds nerve cells and substances they communicate with and has been studied for memory. As a lipotropic choline is critical in fat and cholesterol metabolism particularly via the liver. The heart muscle has one of the highest concentrations of any muscle. For these reasons one often sees lecithin included in weight loss, cardiovascular, and liver support formulas. Discovered in 1850, Lecithin is a naturally occurring fatty substance found in foods like soybeans, whole grains and egg yolks. In the body, lecithin, a type of lipid needed in every living cell, is broken down into Choline, phosphate, glycerol and fatty acids. Choline levels may be low in many individuals, particularly as the American diet includes fewer dairy products, meats and eggs. Researchers believe Choline is the key element in Lecithin that aids beneficially in cholesterol reduction and memory. Choline is essential for cardiovascular health, brain function and cellular membrane composition and repair. Glycerol is converted into glucose by the liver and provides energy for cellular metabolism. Essential fatty acids are found in every cell in the body and are necessary for proper growth and functioning of cells, muscles, nerves and organs. These fatty acids produce prostaglandins which are key to many functions in the body. This rich source of essential fatty acids is very important because it helps the body utilize Vitamins A, B, E and K. Also, it naturally disperses fat and cholesterol into smaller particles, which helps keep cholesterol from collecting on the arterial walls and keeps food moving through the body efficiently. This helps protect against arteriosclerosis and cardiovascular disease. Lecithin aids in the absorption of thiamine by the liver and Vitamin A by the intestine.

GARLIC

Garlic, the perennial herb is prescribed for colds and coughs, as well as for intestinal and digestive orders. Garlic is being viewed more and more as a miracle plant. Besides being a natural antibiotic, Garlic, which contains Flavinoids, is an excellent antioxidant. Garlic is greatly beneficial for bronchitis due to the chemical it releases in the body, allicin, which is one of the most powerful broad-spectrum plant antiseptics. Garlic may lower the risk of bladder and colon cancer as well as help support a healthy cholesterol level. The therapeutic effects of Garlic have been scientifically validated in the area of cholesterol and triglyceride lowering, as well as its strong antimicrobial properties. Garlic will stimulate appetite and metabolism, clear toxins, and act as an antimicrobial agent of the mucous membranes. Garlic fights fungal infections and also boosts immune strength. Decreases and stabilizes blood sugar levels, enhances immunity, and improves circulation. It is important to drink several glasses of water per day when taking large doses of Garlic (over 400mg).

Here is one even better than your dangerous swine flu vaccine:

OLIVE LEAF EXTRACT

Enhances immune function and fights all types of infection including the flu virus. It enhances the immune system and has shown good results in fighting cancer.

Why do you bother with a link when you are just going to copy-paste the whole article? I don’t get many breaks in the evening, if I want to read the article I will follow your link. That is just Internet etiquette 101.

Hey, Worlds best copypasta chef, did you know you’re supposed to indicate when you’re quoting and cite your source? No? Maybe too much garlic sauce “chelated” that handy little fact out of your flea’s turd of a brain. If you want people to listen to you, maybe you should, I don’t know, expose us to your own words?

Actually I have this in muy own personal notebook of herbal remedies and cures at home. It is stored on my computer plus in a physical paper notebook along with related articles. Some of this info is at natural news, some of t on Lifesource4life.com , some of it on herbalcaredirect.com, some of from herbalwisdom.com , etc. I could list all the sites but you may get bored looking at them over the next few days. I did cut and paste from the combined notes in my personal files. I have stuff you won’t believe. Most of this stuff you can grow in your own back yard too. I can’t get graviola becuase it is in Brazil, but a friend is working on getting some seeds in here to grow our own graviola – a fruit 10,000 time more powerful than chemo and much more effect on cancer. I thought the government was all for us eating healthy fruits? Graviola together with cat’s claw, garlic, Vitamin D, and a few of my own recipes would make for a very interesting cancer treatment study – private at-home study, or official study depending on how pissed off the FDA is – when they find out about it. Any specimens out there wlling to participate in my personal private funded secret study?

Initial investigation: determined to have definite vacancy of the cranium due to numerous years of liberal brainwashing

Known cures: whipping, re-education, church going, seperation from similar personnel for extended periods of time.

Prescription: Stick arm up butt, grab uvula, pull real hard. Call doctor in the morning. If you experience any pain of discomfort while on this prescription, this is normal. Please repeat every four minutes as until liberalism has stopped circulation in veins.

Follow-up: Please return in one week for further evaluation.

Thank you for your business. Come again.

Dr. I.M. Smart
Doctor of Homo-Pathic Medicine*

*If you think you may be homo-pathic or have homo-pathic tendencies please seek professional help immediately. Help is out there. Please do not confront normal people as they may not understand your condition. Please refrain from trips to San Francisco until doctor aproves proper therapy. Thank you.

Any specimens out there wlling to participate in my personal private funded secret study?

Let’s do tradesies. I’ll be a specimen for your cancer treatment study* if you’ll be a specimen for my study to see if adding organic yak bile to hydrogen cyanide will result in a relaxing tonic for curing athsma, shin splints, stupidity, homophobia and unspecified assholery.

*DANGER: Did you know that one in three Americans have homo-pathic tendencies.. That risk is greatly improved in traveling in the San Franciso area late at night. If you know a homopath, please report to animal control immediately. Please do not confront.

Celorex is okay too. It may take longer than Detoximin to work though. Any of that stuff will do its job, but takes a while to completely clean out your arteries. I would try Chelorex first, then herbal Care direct’s brand, and then move on to the good stuff – Detoximin to make sure my arteries were clear if i had blockages, or if the government run hellcare refuses to pay for surgery, at least you’ll have the alternative when government runs amuck.

Evidently, it doesn’t matter, otherwise the mountain of evidence wrt the dangers of acetaminophen would have prompted its removal from the market years ago.

Kind of like alcohol, yet it is still on the market despite even more data that it causes considerable morbidity and mortality (and in my opinion), far more than acetaminophen or paracetamol.

I have a cousin who is autistic. His mother was very ashamed of him. I haven’t seen him in probably over 20 years, which is sad on multiple levels. He was an interesting kid when I did get to see him when we were kids. I think he’s in PA now. I have another cousin (other side of the family) who has a daughter with autism. She went to the Winter Special Olympics early last year and did well. She participates in bowling tournaments regularly and beats the pants off her grandfather, my uncle. We’re very proud of her. Trying to “cure” them would be stupid, a diservice, and quite frankly reprehensible.

I just scanned through the comments and don’t believe I saw this, forgive me if I am duplicating effort:
World’sBest – Why put ANYTHING into your blood to remove the toxins when you can just bleed them out? Wouldn’t that be quicker?

Wow, I’m having a bit of deja vu. I just got back from our local Skeptics in the Pub get together where we were confronted by a sad, angry old man with a rucksack of crank books by Peter Duesberg, Christine Maggiore, Deepak Chopra, Fritjof Capra and other nutcases. He couldn’t figure out why if we were a skeptical group that we couldn’t see the truth in these books. He told us that we were in thrall to big Pharma and big Science and that he was the real critical-thinker. He was a former college profesor and clearly a smart man in his day, but all in all just seemed kind of scared and angry. Then I come here an read Best Doctor in the World’s sad, paranoid screeds. In the immortal words of Yogi Bera, it’ deja vu all over again . . .

I am autistic, and it depresses me that so many people would rather I didn’t exist. That so much effort goes into “fixing” people like me, and so much money goes into finding out how people like me come about so that we can be killed.

I feel like I should just get rid of myself to save everyone else the trouble. Autism “destroyed” me, after all, and made me a burden on everyone else. Never mind that I can write stories that people like, and articles that people want to read. We’re looking for flaws, here, not strengths or ways that different (or even disabled) people can contribute.

@Jared: welcome to RI. You sound like you have done very well, if you are able to write stories people like and articles people want to read. Unfortunately, there are many people out there who do believe that autistic persons are flawed and need to be “fixed”. Orac rants about those people often because they are so wrong. But if you read the comments from Chris, Kristin, Kim, etc, you will find acceptance here and the knowledge that you DO have strenghts and ways to contribute.

As for “flaws”…well, we all have them, some are just more visible than others. Please don’t get rid of yourself. You obviously have a lot to contribute to this conversation and we would like to hear your thoughts on this topic.

Don’t go overboard on the self-pity thing (yeah, believe me, I know it ain’t easy). Every parent in the world wants contradictory things for their kids. They want “special” and “bright” and “beautiful” and “talented” and “athletic” and OMG above all please let him/her be “normal” and “blend in.”

Now I tend to agree with the opinion that normal is waaay overrated. But I believe parents’ motivation in wanting their kids to be normal and blend in isn’t because they hate what’s different, it’s because life is supposed to be easier if you’re just one of the crowd, and parents would like their kids to have lives with a minimum of trauma. Whether life really is easier for “average, normal” folks (if such people even exist), who really knows, but you can’t stop people from hoping that their loved ones will have the easiest, most comfortable lives possible.

I feel like I should just get rid of myself to save everyone else the trouble. Autism “destroyed” me, after all, and made me a burden on everyone else.

My husband has Asperger Syndrome and I love him more than any other person in the whole world. It took me longer to understand him, but I am so glad I took the time! He is a genius and is wonderful with our children (in his own way). He even tells me he “needs” me, which is the most beautiful thing in the world, because he doesn’t need anyone.

My six-year-old son is autistic and I couldn’t imagine life without him. I wouldn’t “cure” him if I could! There is nothing to “cure”, it would be like trying to “cure” my daughter of her vivid imagination. It is who they are.

If the people around you are not accepting of you, than they just don’t deserve to know you. Don’t give up! There are people who know how special you are, your autism gives you a uniqueness that this world needs, be proud of it.

Okay, you plagiarized a bunch of stuff from somebody else about garlic and vitamin C and a bunch of other unrelated stuff, but still didn’t answer why you think garlic and Vitamin C are chelators (much less “powerful” ones). (Note: it doesn’t matter if you’ve kept your intellectual property violation on your home computer and cut-and-pasted it from there. If somebody else wrote it and you don’t attribute it properly, it’s plagiarism. That doesn’t affect the merits of your argument, except for the fact that you have seriously hurt your credibility by essentially claiming someone else’s work as your own.)

I strongly suspect you don’t actually understand what a chelator is. Yet if you were a real doctor, you’d have undergone enough basic chemistry coursework to know what the word means. You’d also understand enough biology to know why a lot of the claims you’ve been fed are bunk. You have been *cheated*. You should be angry. Unfortunately, you don’t realize that you’ve been cheated yet. You’re like the person so pleased to be getting that large fee from the nice man in Nigeria, just as long as you pay a few processing fees first. Eventually you’ll realize that you’ve been had, but by then you’ll be poorer, and since this involves health, potentially sicker. Hopefully you’re one of the “worried well”, but this stuff can actually hurt you.

Did you read about the DMSO rat trial? Caused brain and kidney damage. And the doses used were provided orally, and were proportionately equivalent to doses used in humans. Doesn’t mean it’ll do the same in humans, but it should make you worried. After all, that’s consistent with what biochemistry predicts would happen in humans.

Chelators are not gentle at all…. Luckily for you, most of the ones sold OTC are complete frauds and do nothing at all.

Though it’s unrelated to the thread about chelation, I have one more question for you:

I can’t get graviola becuase it is in Brazil, but a friend is working on getting some seeds in here to grow our own graviola – a fruit 10,000 time more powerful than chemo and much more effect on cancer.

Eating healthy fruits is great! But 10,000 times more powerful than chemo? If that were true, wouldn’t it be lethal?

“World’s Best Doctor” proves he’s a paranoid crank with the following phrase alone: “if the government run hellcare refuses to pay for surgery…” He’s an anti-gummint fruit-bat and a teabagger; there’s no need to bother with him.

From someone who didn’t read Kanner 1943 or 1965: I don’t think it’s a coincidence that of the first 11 children diagnosed with Autism, the oldest was born in 1931. 1931 was the year thimerosal was introduced into vaccines. Coincidence? Let me know what you find out…

Why was autism the group created again… oh, right because Kanner found children who didn’t regress in a group that does regress. Also the older children who weren’t dumped in institutions were doing pretty good and their parents were saw progress. Can people please read the paperwork before whining?

Try not to let the people who want to “fix” you bother you too much. They’re afraid of variety. Afraid of anyone not like them.

We’re all “burdens” on each other sometimes, including those people who claim to be “normal” and “healthy” and that the rest of us aren’t. (I’m not autistic, but they’d have equally nasty words for me, for being bisexual and an atheist. They really want to “fix” that.)

From another angle, we all lean on each other. Humans are a social species, and can do a lot more in groups than all alone. And no, that doesn’t mean you have to be just like the other humans. It means that, as you’ve noted, you have things to contribute, and the people who read them are better off for that.

You want to know why this blog is nothing but mostly a one-sided discussion? Most people who are of the ‘Vaccines are not safe’ mind-set don’t want to come on here and get heckled by a bunch of piranhas. You CLAIM you care about the children – that is why you take it upon yourselves to point out the “woo”. Well, I think this set of comments proves you are just as bad as those AoA’s who posted the Thanksgiving turkey picture you cling to like a life preserver. You all can be just as vicious. Just look at the comments above, you have people posting how to contact the FDA on Boyd Haley, you have the classy Kristen calling people “a heartless bitch” because a mother said she wants to help her child lead a normal life, and people saying they would call CPS on parents who use OCR. You act like AoA is the bunch of the wild-eyed, vicious people but perhaps you just need to take a little looksy at your own group here.
I think Orac post things like this on purpose. Orac knows his band of piranhas will circle around Boyd Haley and bring him down. If you care about the children, why try and hurt a man who is offering help to autistic children? You may not agree with it but lots of parents sing it’s praises? So, why do that?
To me – you all are just a little too gung ho to be RIGHT. Like I said above, I think it is out of fear you may be wrong and then where does that leave you…. perhaps in Wooville? Wooville isn’t so bad if you open your mind a little. In fact, it is down right nice here.

you have the classy Kristen calling people “a heartless bitch” because a mother said she wants to help her child lead a normal life

If she wants to help her children, that is wonderful. When I called her a “heartless bitch” it was because she said autistic children are “destroyed”. However you want to spin that, it was heartless, especially since she said she has autistic children.

I will defend autistic children to my dying breath. I don’t care if I hurt her feelings, she certainly doesn’t mind disparaging those who can’t speak for themselves.

You want to know why this blog is nothing but mostly a one-sided discussion?

Except for one big difference: you are allowed to comment without being moderated. It may seem one-sided to you, but science is based on data and evidence, not opinion. If you have evidence that is contrary to what is discussed here, you are more than welcome to present it. Just be prepared to defend.

Can we do that on AoA?

So, really, you actually approve of putting untested chemicals in children? Do you think that Haley is selling the stuff to help children? Can you show us the evidence that it works (and not anecdotes)?

Well of course. If you heard a doctor tell a loved one he/she should take Laetrile (extract of apricot pits) for cancer and forego chemotherapy that might actually be curative, wouldn’t you want to publicize it for the benefit of others who might otherwise be taken in by the same scam?

That is the same spirit in which Orac posts about people like Boyd Haley, especially when there are therapies that can help many autistic individuals lead more fulfilling and enjoyable lives. These therapies aren’t “magic pills,” they’re hard work, particularly for parents.

I can tell you though, having watched my sister-in-law spend hour upon hour working lovingly to educate her son, and refuse to take no for an answer when there was aid available to pay for teaching assistants and physical therapists, it can pay off. My nephew is in the same classes as the “normal” kids his age, and is near the top academically. In fact, if you hadn’t seen him at 4 years of age (no speech, continual repetitive behaviors, no eye contact…), you might not notice that he was on the autism spectrum at all. At the cost of taking a bit longer to do his homework (his parents make sure all the homework is done and he understands all of it, every single school night), my nephew mixes with all the other kids, has friends, and pretty much enjoys his life as much as any other child his age.

I can tell you though, having watched my sister-in-law spend hour upon hour working lovingly to educate her son, and refuse to take no for an answer when there was aid available to pay for teaching assistants and physical therapists, it can pay off.

Your sister-in-law and others like her are an inspiration to me. I have every reason to believe that my son will overcome his difficulties, but it does take work. When I became a mother I didn’t expect to have a child with so many needs, but I chose to be a mother and it is my responsibility to do all I can for him.

piranha are fish that react when edible morsels are thrown/wander into their territory.

When folks like you wander in and toss “academic breadcrumbs” into the discussion please don’t then act shocked and dismayed your assertions and poor reasoning is attacked.

The recommendations of Mr Haley are, to those of us with actual scientific/medical/nursing backgrounds, both scary, and unsafe. WE mention things like involving CPS out of a concern, and depending on what state you live in, statutory requirement to consider the potential for child abuse, endangerment, or neglect when we hear about people ‘sprinkling” a chelating chemical powder into a child’s juice or breakfast sandwich. We, as a group, tend to react strongly to assertions of foregoing fact and science in the name of pursuing unproven “miracle” cures that have been previously suppressed by the bigPHARMa conspiracy…

You, sir, seek out controversy and argument, and then protest when you get what you asked for!!! If you don’t like the product(s) sold here at ORAC-mart, please consider shopping elsewhere?

My previous comment may have been lost in the shuffle, but I just wanted to know if anyone has been able to find any information on anyone who has had adverse reactions to OSR. Any injuries or hospitalizations as a result of this product?

You want to know why this blog is nothing but mostly a one-sided discussion?

If you take a look upthread, you’ll see that I mentioned I posted a comment on AoA, asking if anyone could point me to the studies that show OCR is safe. It’s been over 24 hours, now, and my post still has not shown up. I can speculate about why that might be (simply asking for the evidence casts doubt on the product that is so loudly trumpeted), but I can’t know for sure.

Against that, you have Respectful Insolence, where, unless you include 2 or more hyperlinks in your post, your comments generally show up in a few seconds. Now, remind me again which place is one-sided?

And secondarily, can you please point out how Boyd Haley has not violated Federal regulations? If a pharmaceutical company had violated Federal regulations, would you also protest people calling for the company to be reported?

You may not agree with it but lots of parents sing it’s praises? So, why do that?

And a lot of parents will tell you of the importance of beating your child senseless on a regular basis. Parents aren’t perfect and when they’ve been fed a bunch of lies by the likes of Wakefield and McCarthy, they don’t even need an ounce of malice to torture their children. Just willful ignorance, which you’re so eager to display.

If you care about the children, why try and hurt a man who is offering help to autistic children? You may not agree with it but lots of parents sing it’s praises? So, why do that?

As noted above: “offering help” is a remarkably subjective descriptor of an activity. From the available evidence, it appears that Boyd Haley is actively marketing a substance that does not appear to have had sufficient safety testing for use in humans as a medical treatment (or “dietary supplement”). This alone is beyond ethically dubious, in my opinion. Further, this compound’s mechanism of action (chelation) is known to carry substantive medical risks, as other chelators have definite known side effects and can even cause death. Finally, chelation as a treatment for autism is based on the discredited hypothesis that mercury exposure (primarily through immunization with thiomersal-containing vaccines) is a causative factor of autism spectrum disorder development.

In review:
1. OSR#1 is a compound with inadequate demonstration of safety for use in humans as a medical/dietary treatment…
2. that is of a class of compounds with a known set of health risks and only proved benefits in narrow treatment cases (i.e., heavy metal poisoning)…
3. marketed, if only by inference and place of advertisement, for the treatment of a set of disorders with no demonstrable relation to heavy metal poisoning.

The hypocrisy of AoA and related groups is abundantly evident. On the basis of low-quality evidence (anecdotes, discredited/withdrawn research publications, some carrying allegations of fraud), and in the face of contradictory evidence of higher quality (multiple studies, vastly greater numbers of subjects, a wide variety of methodologies using multiple independent data sets), AoA associates embrace Haley’s treatment (and other nostrums, such as the Lupron protocol) and demonize demonstrably effective and safe medical treatments such as vaccination.

Tell us, L. Harper, why should we be nice about this? If we “care about the children,” would it not be our ethical imperative to evaluate the claims of Harper and others on the available evidence and–should that evidence indicate seriously irresponsible actions that may put minors at risk of needless health complications–react accordingly?

It’s worth noting that the OSR#1 FAQ has been expanded in the last two weeks…The Google cache version of Jan 7, 2010 14:52:50 GMT is rather sparse while the current version has ‘new’ information along the lines of:

“Is it true that OSR#1® is less toxic than Aspirin and Vitamin E?
Yes, OSR#1® is significantly less toxic than aspirin and vitamin E as well as many other over the counter products.”

“There is an internet rumor that OSR#1® is an Industrial Chelator. Is this true?
No. OSR#1® as produced by CTI Science is not now and has never been marketed or tested as an environmental or industrial chelator. Nor has OSR#1® been tested in humans as a chelator by CTI Science, and no claims of chelation treatment use are made by CTI Science.”

etc., etc.

Maybe someone should take some screenshots?

Anyway, it looks like there is a recent effort by CTI Science to respond to all these criticisms posted by Orac and others. (A cynic might consider this an effort in ‘covering your ass’?)

“Worlds Best Doctor” is a fascinating specimen. He reads various pseudoscience BS and swallows it hook, line, and sinker, choosing what to believe based on what sounds good to him. No attempt to seriously construct a model of the world and search for flaws in that model. I guess that’s probably how a lot of people operate, and it makes for relatively easy swindling.

“Benzene is even sometimes fatal to the laboratory chemists who use it when developing other organic compounds!”

Yeah, right. Benzene is a low-reactive solvent. We used to use it to rinse our dishware in chem lab thirty years ago. Benzene and other aromatases are probably carcinogenic in th elong run but are not immediately fatal.

Mike Crichton: depends on the salt. Salt sold for human consumption can be anywhere from 60% to 99% pure NaCl. Most table salt is pretty darn pure, but there is a growing fashion for “gourmet” salts. I’ve got a lovely jar of “Jurassic Sea Salt” in my spice rack. It’s rock salt, mined from what amounts to evaporated Jurassic seawater which is now underground in Utah. It’s distinctly pink. My six-year-old daughter thinks it is extraordinarily cool, and I admit I mostly bought it for the dino-cool factor than anything else. (Marketing at work!)

Wooville isn’t so bad if you open your mind a little. In fact, it is down right nice here.

And I know me some Wooville. I used to live there once, and underneath all the organic-rainbow-unicorn-hopefulness, it wasn’t nice at all. It was based on fear. As I recall, whenever anyone has said that I needed to keep an open mind about something, they were inevitably trying to sell me magic beans. I don’t think I’ve ever had a professor or teacher ever tell me that what I was learning required an open mind. An open mind won’t really help with understanding, say, evolution, or the size of the universe. Hard work and study will help with topics like that.

Open mindedness only seems necessary when approaching the unseen, unheard and untenable. Homeopathy requires an “open mind”. Autism crankery requires an “open mind”. Phlogiston requires an “open mind”. So an open mind is most definitely required for matters of faith. Curiosity and critical-thinking are required for matters of fact.

Ethanol safe to drink? No wonder there are so many crazy people in the world. That stuff is bad for your car, not to mention yourself. I don;t even buy gasoline that contains ethanol. I only use the real stuff. It clogs up your injector ports. To hell with the environment, save my truck.

Ever notice how lots of the wildest and wooliest woo posted in comments on this blog comes from people who self-identify as Dr So-and-So or __ Doctor?

Maybe we need an addendum to the Crank Miranda Warning:

“Statements on this website attributed to a Doctor should not be assumed to come from an actual medical doctor. The Doctor who recommends our product or other form of woo could be a homeopath, a naturopath, a chiropractor, a rug doctor or a lawn doctor. Follow their advice at your own risk.”

Didn’t you know? I am a doctor of homo-pathic medicine. I can cure your homo-pathic tendencies. I have experience in curing this phsychological and physical illness know to some as gayism. There is a cure for them to be normal again but for you, I am not so sure, so follow the instructions and we’ll take it from there:

Prescription: Place your pecker in a frying pan and cook until it looks like bacon. Remove, place between buns and squeeze the juice out. Market it to San Francisco as a “special sauce” .

Call me in the morning. If your pain has not subsided, then calmly place your entire arm up your butt, grab your uvula and pull real hard.

I took some Colloidal Silver today made from American Biotech Labs. I got it at GNC. Actually I have taken it before. it works wonders on Colds. Of course I was also taking ViraBloc and Vitamin C too. I took a cold on Friday. It was gone yesterday.

My friend convinced me to take some liquid Goldenseal. I’ll never do that again. Damn that was some nasty tasting stuff!

I only insult when I am insulted. It is not for me to guess wether some is insulted by being called a homosexual. That trend is catching on these days and actually I was sort of serious about curing it. It is not normal. It could be phsychological – perhaps a childhood hurt gone way wrong.

Keeping in mind the basic cause of development of Type I diabetes (insufficient insulin production by the pancreatic cells), Biogetica therapies stimulates the pancreatic cells to secrete the required amount of insulin .* The combination of natural herbs and homeopathic remedies has proven to be beneficial in increasing the immunity and responsiveness of the body.* The therapeutic ingredients are safe and beneficial even during pregnancy or menstruation.* Biogetica kits correct subtle imbalances within the pancreas and stimulate it to function optimally.*

They go on to say that Metformin is a common drug used to treat Type I diabetes.

Ordinary table salt is pretty close to being pure, the extra purification steps for lab use wouldn’t do anything to make it harmful.

Not that I disagree with a lot of what you are trying to say, I should also note that “pretty close to pure” isn’t necessarily sufficient, depending on the impurities. For example, drug synthesis people know very well that they need to avoid using a Stille coupling step in their synthesis, because no matter how pure you get the final product (99.9999% or better) you can’t get the tin level down below required levels (ppb or something like that).

Lab grade NaCl might be 99.99%, which might even be higher than some commercial versions (as Calli points out), but that doesn’t mean it is necessarily safe for consumption.

Absolute ethanol is a lot purer than 95%, but 95% is safer to drink (it’s azeoptroped with water, as opposed to benzene). PS Don’t drink labgrade 95% ethanol, either – it is laced with phenolphthalein – a good laxative

OSR 1 is composed of two natural compounds found in fluids of humans and other mammals.

Can someone smarter than me please tell me if this is accurate? Even if it is, there are lots of things “found in the fluids of humans and other mammals” that I am sure I don’t want to feed my children.

Do you think AoA noticed the disclaimer on their “evidence of extensive testing”? “OSR#1® is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. The statements in this website have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.”

And I think they confused testing of what it does with clinical trials (i.e. safety testing)…

I don’t know why this “testing” and information is adequate for those who buy and use the product but none of the research that shows vaccines didn’t cause autism aren’t sufficient.

Actually, that’s not true; I do understand it psychologically. I just don’t understand it logically. Once you know your gut can screw with your judgment, seems to me you discount the gut. Once you know your memory is malleable, you go with the science.

It is now almost 48 hours since I posted my comment on AoA’s thread, and it still has not appeared. Funny, really, because I wasn’t even being aggressive or bashing anything. All I did was ask where I could find the studies showing OSR was safe, since the CTI web site didn’t actually have anything. Innocent question, no?

My first thought is OH MY GOD THE STENCH!!! Anyone else out there ever work with aromatic thiols? They must be selling it as the sodium salt or the disulfide.

My thoughts exactly. But even as the salt, as you put it in slightly acidic media, like food, it must still stink to high heaven. Given the sensitivity to thiols I have developped from a few years as an organic chemist, I wood probably be completely unable to keep down any food that has this in it. Heck, I have trouble keeping even garlic down.

Just thinking of the aftertaste that would assail me if I burped this thing makes me throw up in my mouth.

“OSR 1 is composed of two natural compounds found in fluids of humans and other mammals.”

Dunno about that claim – but it’s noteworthy that the sweetener aspartame is composed of two natural compounds found in humans (amino acids). And many people in the “Vaccines are BAD” camp also believe aspartame is a toxic agent that causes a bunch of diseases.

Ethanol safe to drink? No wonder there are so many crazy people in the world. That stuff is bad for your car, not to mention yourself.

There are indeed some very serious adverse effects to drinking ethanol. These include:

* thinking that you are the best comedian in the world
* believing that cute girl in the corner booth likes you
* putting lampshades on your head
* false perception of invulnerability
* vomiting
* loss of consciousness, followed by pranks played upon your person by inebriated colleagues
* waking up with an unfamiliar member of the opposite sex in your bed and a deep sense of remorse
* blackouts
* dehydration
* adverse interactions with drugs such as acetominophen, aspirin, warfarin, and any narcotics
* inability to safely operate heavy equipment

Prolonged heavy use can lead to dependency, hepatotoxicity, cardiac disease, brain damage, loss of driving privileges, loss of financial security, loss of employment, loss of friends, loss of loved ones, and even death.

So yes, ethanol can be very dangerous to drink. I still enjoy a little bit every now and again; the glass of wine I have once or twice as week is about 14% ethanol.

(Were you perhaps confusing ethanol and methanol, or are you part of a temperance movement?)

“Absolute ethanol is a lot purer than 95%, but 95% is safer to drink (it’s azeoptroped with water, as opposed to benzene). PS Don’t drink labgrade 95% ethanol, either – it is laced with phenolphthalein – a good laxative”

A “single pure compound” cannot be “composed of two other compounds” – it’s either a pure single compound or it isn’t.

If what is meant is that two natural compounds are reacted to make the “single pure compound”, then the resulting compound is chemically different from the two starting “natural” compounds and it is particularly stupid to assume that it will have the same properties as the starting compounds – it hurts the part of my brain that it used for chemistry that a chemist, of all people, could say such things.

If Haley has written that publicity, it is particularly despicable of him in that he is relying on his clients utter beffuddlement and ignorance in matters of quite accessible high-school level chemistry – the difference between pure substances and mixes, as well as the definition of a chemical reaction is a very very basic notion of chemistry. It shows that he has a particularly low opinion of the education and intelligence of his marks.

I have no idea how he can still look himself in the mirror as a scientist after having written or approved such drivel.

The bottom line for a lot of these parents, though, is that they are seeing gains/progress after some of these bio-medical/chelation treatments. And, in a funny way, just as you don’t think the vaccines can cause any harm (and they almost certainly can-as demeonstrated by some studies), they believe (anecdotally) that the bio-med supplements are helping. The truth obviously lies somewhere in the middle. All the evidence is NOT in where vaccines and brain problems/injuries are concerned and same with the chelation/bio med treatment.
If I were one of those parents, though, I would be trying something to help my child be the best that they can be, especially if I saw them regress and felt certain it was due to some kind of toxin.

In fact, the more I think about it, the angrier I get. So, it’s o.k. to shove 30 some ingredients (some neurotoxic) into little babies arms (hep b at birth!) and think that’s all fine even though the studies backing them are half the time lame (Fombonne actually looked at a few kids in Montreal and used data on vaccination rates from Quebec City!)and yet you laugh at parents who use “industrial chelators.” YOu guys are hypocrits!!

just as you don’t think the vaccines can cause any harm (and they almost certainly can-as demeonstrated by some studies)

Two remarks regarding this sentence fragment:
1. Nobody here is claiming that vaccines carry no risk of adverse effects. Quite the contrary. It is a straw man position to claim that the pro-vaccine side claims vaccination is risk-free.

2. Please cite the studies that indicate a risk in developing an autism spectrum disorder following vaccination. It may prove useful to search this blog (by author name, for instance) for possible critical evaluation of those studies. Further, explain why the studies you cite are sufficient to cast doubt on the considerably large volume of contradictory evidence published on this topic.

I’m not convince the “truth obviously lies somewhere in the middle” at all. Sometimes one side is just plain wrong…

I’ve tried to get jen to provide study citations before, but she doesn’t. Hopefully she’s taken some time to do a little more reading on the topic, as I recommended a while ago. We’ll see.

@jen

So, we have a lot of parents who, based on anecdotal evidence, believe that vaccines caused their kids’ autism. They also believe, again, based only on anecdotal evidence, that chelation and other unapproved treatments have helped their kids get better. With all these stories, you would think that there would be some studies (including clinical trials to gain FDA approval) showing that these things not only safe, but actually work. Why don’t the makers and marketers of these treatments try to get FDA approval (and the marketing exclusivity that comes along with it)?

On topic to this post, though, Haley is marketing a chelator as a dietary supplement. He has not provided FDA with the materials they require showing that a) OSR#1 is a safe dietary ingredient or b) that it is a dietary supplement. Further, he’s using the “dietary supplement” as an end-run around the new drug laws. This puts people, mostly children who cannot advocate for themselves, at risk of harm, the nature and severity of which we don’t know because there aren’t any studies!

shit, just wrote a long one but forgot to enter name etc.
some studies: Hornig, M. NEurotoxic effects of postnatal thim are mouse strain dependent.
Echeverra D.et al. Low level mercury exposure, BDNF polymorphism and ass’n with cognitive and motor function.
Herbert, M.R. Large brains in autism. The challenge of pervasive abnormality.
Petrik, M.S. Aluminum hydroxide inject
ions lead to motor defiicits and motor neuron degen.
Vargas,D.L. Neuroglial activity an neuroinflammation in the brains of patients with autism.
Obviously, there need to be clinical studies of brain inflammation alongside the vaccine program and yet this would be impossible now that they are vaccinating on the first day of life. YOu would have to compare vaccinated against unvaccinated children re. Brain inflammation and this has to happen. FDA may eventually approve these but it would be tantamount to admitting environmetal damage (vaccines being a big contender). I do see it happening, though. Sorry so brief-have to go to work.

jen: “And, in a funny way, just as you don’t think the vaccines can cause any harm (and they almost certainly can-as demeonstrated by some studies), they believe (anecdotally) that the bio-med supplements are helping.”

What’s (not so) funny is that opinions about the high degree of safety of vaccines and lack of evidence of an autism link, are based on actual evidence attained through clinical studies, while the supposed improvement in autistic kids through “bio-med” supplements are based on intrinsically faulty anecdote.

“The truth obviously lies somewhere in the middle.”

A classic error, though one that the media frequently falls into. When you’ve got one position argued from science and another from bias and hyperbole, the truth does not automatically lie in some magical middle ground. When you’ve got nothing to offer, half of that is still nothing.

Point one: There have been lots of experimental studies on research animals of vaccines trying to show a link between vaccines and autism. I’ve written about some of them right here, and other bloggers have discussed them in detail as well. For example, there was the infamous Mady Hornig “rain mouse” study, in which she claimed that thimerosal at the doses infants received, adjusted for size, caused autistic symptoms. Both Prometheus and Autism Diva enumerated the numerous flaws and ethical lapses in that experiment.

In other words, Dr. Herbert is making claims far beyond what her publication record in the peer-reviewed literature can, even under the most charitable interpretation possible, support. Nothing at all in her publication record appears to support the concepts above of autism being a systemic, rather than brain-based condition.

That is two of the papers in the Gish Gallop. The other papers have not been discussed much. But they have been cited in the comments, sometimes in a Gish Gallop, and sometimes being criticized. Still the science is very much against thimerosal (that has not been in pediatric vaccines for almost a decade) being a cause of autism.

And even it was, that does not in any way exonerate Boyd Haley for exploiting parents of disabled children with his untested “supplement.”

What I disagree on is giving my son unproven ‘treatments’ which have not been properly tested and are potentially dangerous. The above list is not exhaustive there are many other safe and effective treatments. All the treatments I have tried have no side-effects, save the effect of bringing my son and I closer.

These proven techniques are difficult and time-consuming, a parent has to literally put their life on hold to help their autistic child to succeed. Some are not willing to put in the time, or they are not content with the best their children can be. They want ‘normal’ as fast as possible.

*These are thing we have tried. I cannot guarantee these sites are completely woo-free, but I think they are.

If Haley has written that publicity, it is particularly despicable of him in that he is relying on his clients utter beffuddlement and ignorance in matters of quite accessible high-school level chemistry – the difference between pure substances and mixes, as well as the definition of a chemical reaction is a very very basic notion of chemistry. It shows that he has a particularly low opinion of the education and intelligence of his marks.

Actually, this is kind of why I didn’t respond to Kristen’s initial post. It’s so wrong I don’t even know where to start. I, too, thought this was pure material. N,N-bis-2-ethylthiol-isophthalimde, or something like that (I know the structure, I’m just not good at naming). So to say that it consists of “two compounds” is not at all correct. It may be synthesized from two compounds, but it is still a single substance at the end. Just as sodium chloride is a single substance, made from sodium metal and chlorine, that doesn’t mean sodium consists of sodium metal and chlorine.

Although it doesn’t matter, I wonder what are the two things that are common in the body? While I admit I have only simple synthetic skills, my first thought would be some isophthalic acid derivative and the N,N-bis-ethanethiolamine, but I am probably wrong.

I am trying to think of the source of the mercaptan. Maybe it’s a cysteine?

“”There is an internet rumor that OSR#1® is an Industrial Chelator. Is this true?
No. OSR#1® as produced by CTI Science is not now and has never been marketed or tested as an environmental or industrial chelator.”

This is – technically – true. Although the exact same chemical has been produced, tested and (I believe) marketed as an environmental chelator, “OSR#1″ has not.

This is no different from saying, “Although there has been an Internet rumor that Firewater brand whiskey is an industrial solvent and antiseptic, Firewater brand whiskey is NOT used – and has NEVER been used – as an industrial solvent.”

The difference is that, although enthanol (the active ingredient in whiskey) IS used as an industrial solvent, etc., NOBODY uses whiskey (not even the cheap stuff) as an industrial solvent (I HAVE seen it used as an antiseptic).

I’m sorry, but this kinda pissed me off…who’s laughing?? If I’m not mistaken, mostly everyone who’s posted here has been horrified at what these parents are doing to their children! Not laughing, as if it’s some harmless and silly “treatment.” Sure there’s been some snark and the like…not anything close to what I would call “laughing at parents.” This is far too serious for that.

Interesting, though, that that’s how you would interpret the previous comments. As if the calls for studies and consequences, and the horror and shock expressed, is just us teasing those poor poor parents, because we’re just big meanies. WTFever.

I’ve been trying to track down the basis for CTI to claim that “OSR 1 is composed of two natural compounds found in fluids of humans and other mammals.”

According to Boyd Haley’s submission to the FDA, the two ingredients of OSR#1 are cysteamine (a breakdown product of the amino acid cysteine) and isophthalic acid (benzene-1,3-dicarboxylic acid). Now, while csyteamine is normally found in “fluids of humans and other mammals” (at low levels), I am at a loss to see where isophthalic acid is a common metabolic product of mammalian (or human) metabolism.

While you might find isophthalic acid in the blood and other “bodily fluids” (see: Dr. Strangelove), it would be a contaminant – absorbed as a result of isophthalic acid contamination of food, water or (possibly) air.

Although my knowledge of metabolic physiology is extensive, it is not absolute. If anybody knows of any organism that produces isophthalic acid, I’d be interested. From what I can find, however, it is not a normal component of human or mammalian tissues. I was able to find enzymes (five in bacteria, one in wheat) that can metabolize ortho-phthalates, isophthalate is a meta-phalate and does not appear to have any known enzymes that can metabolize it.

I suspect that this claim – that the two ingredients are “found in fluids of humans and other mammals” – is a part-truth (sometimes called a “lie”). Isophthalic acid is definitely found in human body fluids, it just isn’t supposed to be there.

1] A relabeled but clinically untested chelation chemical is fine to use on my child, autistic or not, to treat or prevent possible illness.

2] Vaccines are dangerous, despite decades of research and testing

3] vaccination is a safe and sage way to protect both the health of your children as well as their siblings and classmates, and has resulted in decreased mortality and morbidity for many diseases in the US and the world.

4] my goldfish has stayed alive, gotten bigger and shinier in his tank over the last 6 weeks, so I bet if I drink some of the water I will also receive health benefits.

202 Jared, you cannot compare yourself to what other families are going through with their particular children. Nobody is affected the same. You are not damaged, but sometimes children are. I have 4 adopted children with autism, and they are all extremely affected. They have been treated with years of love and patience (as someone posted earlier was all they needed to be ‘cured’), and therapy. Not one of them will ever be ready to live on their own. Not one of them can feed, bathe, or communicate independently. You all get upset when some parents feel like their child is damaged, but you forget that sometimes they actually were. Their brain was damaged in some way, and they do not learn how to function even after 14+ yrs. Kristen, Chris and others, you cannot forget that in your posts.

I got into an argument with an anti-vaxer today. She brought up formaldehyde. Her beef is that the formaldehyde that your body produces is “natural” and therefore okay, while the formaldehyde in vaccines is synthetic and therefore dangerous.

You are painting us with a very big brush, Marishka. I have one of those children who cannot function as an adult (and there has been a recent health development that is actually life threatening, I am very upset).

I would also remind you that the child you are describing is a fraction of the numbers in the 1 in 100 statistics.

I always have good thoughts for your child Chris, and I hope all works out well soon. I only meant the way the parents are disparaged sometimes before we even know their true difficulties. I appreciate the facts. All 4 of my children are in that fraction, so that makes it a big ‘statistic’ (real children, not numbers) in my house.

I do feel for you, how wonderful that you are taking care of children with so many needs. They would probably not be in a very good place without you.

I do understand the difficulties, my son is not on the most profound side of the spectrum, but he is also not so close to the other side.

I do understand that all autistic children are very difficult to raise, some more so than others. Even the children who are mentally retarded, though, deserve for those who care for them to accept who they are.

I disagree with the ‘damaged’ label because, to me it sounds dehumanizing. I don’t think parents with a Down’s child would refer to them as ‘damaged’ and wouldn’t be searching for a magic cure. When children are described as ‘damaged’ there is the connotation that they need to be ‘fixed’. I also don’t like these children being referred to as ‘ruined’ or ‘destroyed’.

It is hard to raise one autistic child, and I am also raising my teenage sister with severe Bipolar Disorder. With just these two children with exceptional needs, I feel overwhelmed. I can’t even fathom how difficult things must be for you with four. And the fact that you are not biologically responsible for them makes you an extremely good person.

The thing that makes me so angry is not necessarily the ways parents describe them (and since you have shown me a different perspective, I will try harder to understand why they do). It is the fact that some parents will stop at nothing to find a ’cause’ and a ‘cure’, up to and including dangerous, untested therapies. This article that someone else pointed out earlier, quotes parents bragging about experimenting on their own children! This is what makes me so angry. It seems some parents can only think of how the autism effects them, not how they can help their children.

I am sorry if I have come off as cold, or unfeeling. My children are my passion and I tend to get over-excited.

Marischka, where have I disparaged parents on this posting for what they are doing to their children?

Let me see what I wrote…

“Javier, you are a nutter going on about a tempest in a teapot.” and “Please provide the real evidence. Or do you just go by silly insults, rhymes and conspiracies?” and “Also, even the influenza vaccine is available without thimerosal. So do try to state your concerns that are real, based on fact and with evidence.”

Oh, noes! I disparaged someone for posting conspiracy stuff! I did not disparage him for his parenting, but for assertions without evidence.

“He probably just goes to anti-vax sites like AoA, which are echo chambers. More than likely he has never had anyone challenge him. If you think he was fun, you should see the guys who were upset over PalMD’s questioning the practice of a doctor (Crisler) over at WhiteCoatUnderground.”

Oh, noes! I gave an explanation why someone decided to would not react well to being challenged. Somehow I do not think that is disparaging him on how he parents.

“Or just show where in the several years of blogging that Orac has skewed the science. Just show us why you said “AoA skews science in their favor when they need it – you do the same crime.””

Oh, noes! I am asking for evidence.

“I believe the money flow is pointing directly towards Boyd Haley. Just like it did a decade ago when he was cashing in the the dentel amalgam scare (he had another company that sold tests and cures). He seems to have found more panic and deeper pockets in the parents of disabled children.”

“So, really, you actually approve of putting untested chemicals in children? Do you think that Haley is selling the stuff to help children? Can you show us the evidence that it works (and not anecdotes)?”

“And even it was, that does not in any way exonerate Boyd Haley for exploiting parents of disabled children with his untested “supplement.””

Again, my whole feeling is that Boyd Haley is an opportunistic quack, who has been earning money over mercury scares for over a decade. This last scheme to sell them some untested powder is just pure evil. I very much dislike how he takes advantage of desperate parents. I cannot find any reason to defend Haley. If you thinks that is “disparaging” the parents, then you have a very different definition of the term than most of us.

Calli, OSR#1 should be tested properly and I bet most parents trying it would agree with that. I also think that there may be some serious hurdles put up for that to happen in that, as I mentioned before, if they work then that’s pretty tantamount to saying that the children have been environmentally damaged (possibly including by vaccines). Look at the fuss created regarding Desiree Jennings.
I did provide some studies showing that vaccine ingredients could be linked to problems, obviously some of the people here think they are not perfect. Well, neither is stuff like Fombonne’s prevalance data for Canada. It’s really bad; embarrasing even.
Scientizzle and Todd, I have a challenge for you. You have both stated before that vaccination has risks of adverse effects (#259). Now, you show me the evidence for that with studies as to that fact. How do you know that there have been adverse effects? What evidence have you seen?
And Chris, before you try and minimize that “fraction” of children, I will remind you that those fractions are alot of real children who will grow up needing alot of support and love.

Calli, OSR#1 should be tested properly and I bet most parents trying it would agree with that. I also think that there may be some serious hurdles put up for that to happen in that, as I mentioned before, if they work then that’s pretty tantamount to saying that the children have been environmentally damaged (possibly including by vaccines). Look at the fuss created regarding Desiree Jennings.
I did provide some studies showing that vaccine ingredients could be linked to problems, obviously some of the people here think they are not perfect. Well, neither is stuff like Fombonne’s prevalance data for Canada. It’s really bad; embarrasing even.
Scientizzle and Todd, I have a challenge for you. You have both stated before that vaccination has risks of adverse effects (#259). Now, you show me the evidence for that with studies as to that fact. How do you know that there have been adverse effects? What evidence have you seen?
And Chris, before you try and minimize that “fraction” of children, I will remind you that those fractions are alot of real children who will grow up needing alot of support and love.

Yes, but that “fraction” is made out to be the whole. Sure it is lots, but so are the kids who used to be permanently injured from the diseases. Do we need to go back to the days when there were whole institutions full of children who were disabled from measles, mumps, Hib, rubella, polio and other vaccine preventable diseases.

Also, jen, just go to the CDC Pink Book and read each chapter. The vaccines are explained, including all the side effects (actually, I have a nice piece of paper given to me when I got my H1N1 vaccine a few days ago, it is all spelled out). Certainly lots more than you get with that one page FAQ on the OSR.

the vaccines and their possible side effects are listed on the piece of paper. Well that’s just great but I don’t think that they (vaccine courts) seem to be too forthcoming with admitting that indeed a particular child did suffer a particular side effect even though the piece of paper says that that is a possibility. I’m still waiting for what Todd and Scientizzle have on that. Your comment about OSR not listinng side effects, is I believe, what you refer to as strawman.
I still say they need to compare children who have been vacced to children who have not and looking for things like brain swelling. I think there would be lots of volunteers for the unvacced group!

I’m very disappointed by the sheer cognitive dissonance Boyd Haley’s facing now. Given the fact he’s been practicing chemistry for quite some time, I would have thought that he would have become more responsible for the knowledge he pronounces.

And yet, he has metaphorically sold his ethical soul!

Even the basics of toxiology [“the dose makes the poison”] and the different properties of synthesing different chemicals is neglected. As to the natural vs. artifical divide over chemicals: squalene produced by the liver has exactly the same molecular structure and reaction potential as the squalene found in skin lotions. What matters, as always, is the safety, medical effectiveness and the metabolic breakdown of these substances. I reckon it’s the intuition of the natural ‘essence’ of things that persuades people into taking quack therapies.

Calli, OSR#1 should be tested properly and I bet most parents trying it would agree with that.

No, not really. The kind of parents who are already giving OSR#1 to their kids don’t want the compound to be tested, they want it to be rubber-stamped.

I also think that there may be some serious hurdles put up for that to happen in that, as I mentioned before, if they work then that’s pretty tantamount to saying that the children have been environmentally damaged (possibly including by vaccines).

I would compare this to Orly Taitz’s belief that major portions of the government are engaged in a conspiracy to keep the lawsuits in which she thinks she can prove that President Obama is not a “natural-born citizen” out of the highest courts. She believes that it is because if her lawsuits are heard they will surely prove that Obama is not qualified for the Presidency.

Everyone else believes it is because she has the cart before the horse: until she has some sort of extraordinary evidence to support her extraordinary claim that Barack Obama is not a natural-born citizen as the records of his birth state indicate, there’s no reason that everyone’s time should be wasted with the claim.

Look at the fuss created regarding Desiree Jennings.

Indeed. And look at how many people who desired the conclusion that Desiree Jennings was vaccine-injured abandoned actual rigorous logic to try and jump to that conclusion. For instance, those who said “Now that she is being treated by Dr. Rashid Buttar for what he believes is mercury toxicity induced by a vaccine, and she is reporting improvement; this is tantamount to admitting that mercury toxicity induced by a vaccine is what she actually had!” This particular fallacy is known as affirming the consequent. A three-year-old might tell you that the cookie jar got broken when a gang of masked burglars ran into the kitchen and tried to get the jar off the shelf and accidentally knocked it down instead; we would not conclude that this particular far-fetched scenario is particularly supported by the fact that the cookie jar is actually broken.

I still say they need to compare children who have been vacced to children who have not and looking for things like brain swelling. I think there would be lots of volunteers for the unvacced group!

I’m sure there would be. That’s the problem: it’s called self-selection. You simply can’t generalize from any study performed on a self-selected sample.

If you had a chance to live your life over again, would you still have children? That very question has been asked to both randomly-selected and self-selected samples of mothers (the self-selection involves putting out an ad asking mothers to call or write in) multiple times. Every time, in the randomly-selected group, the overwhelming majority of mothers would do it again. And every time, the overwhelming majority of mothers in the self-selected sample wouldn’t.

The problem here is that mothers who are unsatisfied with their choices are much more likely to make the extra effort to respond than ones who are satisfied, and therefore they’re overrepresented in the sample. It’s like listening to people talk about their cars; long ago, JD Power found out that people who are unhappy with their cars tell 4-5 times as many people about it than people who are happy with them.

The point is that all your volunteers would be an unrepresentative group, and their kids certainly could not be used as a proxy for what kids would be like if everybody stopped vaccinating (in the kind of study you propose, I’d actually expect that the unvaccinated kids would be healthier than the vaccinated kids, representing nothing more than the fact that they’d be disproportionately upper-middle-class white kids).

Antaeus! That is some funky answer you have going! I think parents would love for some real help for their kids and I think they would seriously be open to having these treatments studied. Bottom line is Desiree did seem to get better using non-conventional medicine. You people do seem to admit to there being harmful side effects from vaccines because, if nothing else, they are listed on the package inserts. Yet, neither you nor the courts show these “fractions” any compensation. It’s grossly unfair.

The bibliography is a selection of the thousands of papers one the effects of the vaccines done before they are even allowed to go on the market, and including post-market surveillance. It is not one paper, it is thousands. I went to PubMed and plugged in “vaccines safety” and it spit out “Results: 1 to 20 of 8038.” If only reviews are selected it spits out “Results: 1 to 20 of 1787.”

Examples include (this would be where I could do a Gish Gallop, just because there are so many!):
Safety of influenza vaccination during pregnancy.
Tamma PD, Ault KA, del Rio C, Steinhoff MC, Halsey NA, Omer SB.
Am J Obstet Gynecol. 2009 Dec;201(6):547-52. Epub 2009 Oct 21. Review

Actually, my comment about OSR is not a strawman, it is the subject of this blog posing. What is happening is that Haley is selling an untested chemical as a “supplement” to get around the rules for drugs. The reason is because of the idiotic DSHEA. Try reading what Orac wrote:

Then suppose that, in order to avoid having to obtain FDA approval, the pharmaceutical company rebranded its chelating agent as a “supplement,” using the DSHEA of 1994 to bypass any need for extensive clinical trial testing for safety and efficacy in order to be able to market this chemical directly to consumers.

So even if these kids had heavy metal poisoning (perhaps by eating lead figurines), how does anyone know that it is safe and effective?

Ebohlman, I understand your point. I suppose a randomized double-blind study would be the answer. Tougher, but not impossible. We have too many children experiencing regressive autism not to do something. Either way, ethics are an issue.

Chris, I did read the abstracts for two of the studies you cited. The one about safety of influenza vacc during pregnancy never even specified whether the flu shots contained thimerosal (at least in the intro) and only studied the infants to 6 months. The number of mothers who got the vaccine was quite small in relation to the control group of those who had not got the shot. Also, what about the fact that Joe Dr. may not read the insert and give a pregnant woman a shot in the first trimester? Probably happens all the time. No safety data on that (from that study, anyways).
The Priorix Tetra study only compared that shot against another MMR series and a separate varicella vaccine. So that seems kind of lame to me. Lets compare say, people who smoke 2 packs of cigarettes a day to people who smoke 1 pack. No big differences? No problemo -the smokes must be fine. I sure as heck wouldn’t be giving my kids that live 4 in 1 vaccine!

Oooh, you found flaws in two out of the several thousand studies that deal with vaccines and safety! But never a thought on how Hornig tortured mice, or that other researchers massaged data after some wonky primate studies. And yet, who cares what you think about vaccines? Really, who cares? Because, get a hint… it is off topic.

How does your little foray into PubMed make Boyd Haley a happy hero selling his concoction? What does it have to do with selling stuff to parents who hope to find a way to help their kids (other than lots of speech therapy, occupational and physical therapy, and many many hours in IEP meetings, which they all do in addition to spending thousands of dollars on supplements, cranialsacral therapy, and other dodgy treatmens)?

If you want to make Haley a happy hero, then you tell us why the OSR is so great. Give us the real data that vaccines today hurt kids (oh, and remember they no longer contain thimerosal, so you’ll have to find data on the other reasons).

Because until you actually have real data and evidence (and not on mice or monkeys!), this the only way I will reply:
The science has been done, the link between vaccines and autism does not exist. It is a dead link… “It’s not pinin’! ‘It’s passed on! This link is no more! It has ceased to be! It’s expired and gone to meet its maker! It’s a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If you hadn’t nailed it to the perch it’d be pushing up the daisies! Its metabolic processes are now ‘istory! It’s off the twig! It’s kicked the bucket, it’s shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible!! THIS IS AN EX-LINK!! ” (hat-tip to Monty Python and the dead parrot sketch)

Chris, you sound pretty steamed that I found faults in the studies you provided just as you have found fault in some that I provided. The science is not conclusive on the issue of vaccines and autism.
Of course OSR should be studied, I actually said that several times earlier. Parents whose children have suffered regressive autism would likely welcome it. Bring it on!
“Give us the data today that vaccines hurt kids.” Well the package inserts tell us about possible adverse effects and yet miraculously they don’t publish as to the whys of those. The courts hardly ever even compensate the poor kids/parents who have suffered those side effects.

Influenza shots without thimersal are available, and really not many kids get the flu shot (at last report on 20% of the USA population). Talk about your strawman arguments!

I am steamed at you finding minor faults with two out of thousands of studies, yet feel free to both post very flawed studies (how do we know mice are autistic?) and ignoring the very evil tactics of Boyd Haley…

Good grief, what part of Haley effectively saying “Hey! these idiots will buy crap if I tell it will turn into gold!” that you fail to understand? He is a crook. He has been playing off of people’s fear for over a decade. This is not a nice man, he is someone who makes the actual scum of the earth wish he would move to another galaxy. At first it was dental fillings, now it is vaccines. Even though every single pediatric vaccine is available without thimerosal (even influenza!).

I repeat:

The science has been done, the link between vaccines and autism does not exist. It is a dead link… “It’s not pinin’! ‘It’s passed on! This link is no more! It has ceased to be! It’s expired and gone to meet its maker! It’s a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If you hadn’t nailed it to the perch it’d be pushing up the daisies! Its metabolic processes are now ‘istory! It’s off the twig! It’s kicked the bucket, it’s shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible!! THIS IS AN EX-LINK!! ” (hat-tip to Monty Python and the dead parrot sketch)

@Jen: I’m only going to say this one last time: A randomized double blind study of vaccinated vs unvaccinated children is UNETHICAL!!!! You have been told this before. If you want that kind of study done, YOU find an IRB that will pass it. NO IRB in the USA or Canada would ever pass that kind of study. So, I guess you can say that we are all part of the evil Big Pharma, and are hiding something.

For pete’s sake. If you are going to ask for research, at least do some learning about how studies in human subjects are set up. Orac had a very good post several months ago about IRBs. (And don’t point at Hitler, or Tuskaloosa, because they are all BEFORE the current rules were established.)

Bottom line is Desiree did seem to get better using non-conventional medicine.

Fixed that for ya, since we don’t really know whether the reason that she appeared to get better was in fact due to the (discredited) treatment. And I’m encouraged that you included the phrase “seem to,” since there is some uncertainty regarding exactly what Desiree’s diagnosis was or whether it had anything to do with non-psychological effects of the vaccine.

Of course there’s also the fact that Desiree is one among tens of millions receiving the vaccine, while there are thousands dead or who were made gravely ill by flu (including unexpectedly large numbers of young, healthy people) among the unvaccinated.

[P]lease try and remember to stop saying that “the shots no longer contain thimerosal” since the multi-dose flu shots do!

Now that the multi-dose shots have been given to hundreds of thousands, or perhaps millions, where are the hundreds or thousands of reports flooding in of children suddenly displaying autistic symptoms? What the anecdotal “evidence” always seems to indicate is that onset of symptoms occurs within hours or days. So in a year or so let’s look for the great autism pandemic of 2009-2010 in the statistics, shall we?

Here are the results of a post-marketing surveillance study on Infanrix, a DTaP vaccine from GSK. It examined the safety of the vaccine from first dose (2 months old) through 4 weeks after the final dose (4-6 years old). They collected data on serious adverse events for the entire study period, solicited AEs (i.e., those known or suspected from pre-market clinical trials) during the 4-week followup and unsolicited AEs (i.e., any AE reported as temporally connected, regardless of causality) during the 4-week followup.

This is only the results (sans narrative) of just one study on one vaccine. The AEs you see in a vaccine insert are those discovered during Phase I-III clinical trials, which are required by law before marketing approval. The list also includes AEs discovered during Phase IV (post-marketing) clinical trials, as well as AEs reported to any employee of the company. By law, the package insert must list all related AEs, even those not shown to be causally related.

Now that that’s out of the way, do you believe that Boyd Haley should be allowed to sell OSR#1 without any testing?

Antaeus has it right; the people who are currently using OSR#1 most likely do not want it to go through clinical trials, but rather just get rubber-stamped. You know why? Because they already “know” that it works and is “safe”. Clinical trials would just slow things down and keep them from getting the product. They don’t need it tested; they have conviction.

[P]lease try and remember to stop saying that “the shots no longer contain thimerosal” since the multi-dose flu shots do!

It always confuses me why the “thimerasol in vaccines causes autism” advocates mention thimerasol in multi-dose flu vaccines. What does that have to do with anything?

Aside from Desiree Jennings, as far as I know flu vaccines have not (seriously, even among the usual anti-vax crowd) been associated with ANY actual problems – only fear. Regardless of which version (thimerasol containing or not containing, shot or mist) of the flu vaccine we are talking about, there have been 100s of millions of doses given over the years with no associated problems at all.

Including autism. As far as I know, no one has ever noticed even an association between flu shots, thimerasol containing or not, and autism, certainly not like is claimed for MMR (and when the MMR accusation fails, goalposts at other positions).

I guess I don’t get it. There is no indication flu vaccines cause any real problems, and certainly not autism. So what’s the point of pointing out that they may contain thimerasol?

“…please try and remember to stop saying that “the shots no longer contain thimerosal” since the multi-dose flu shots do!”

Great, but influenza vaccine uptake among the under-three group has been (up to this past year) very low, and since – even with the influenza vaccine – their life-to-date thimerosal dose is lower than it would have been before the onset of the “autism epidemic”, how does that explain anything about autism?

Frankly, perseverating on the “thimerosal-causes-autism” dead hypothesis is silly. The amount of thimerosal children get from vaccines – even if they get the thimerosal-containing influenza vaccine – is (as mentioned above) currently below the amount children received in the 1970’s. All but the most rabidly irrational anti-vaccination advocates have “moved on” from thimerosal to “greener” pastures.

Thimerosal (and mercury) as a cause of autism is a dead concept. Unless some new data (real data) pops up to explain how thimerosal can still be causing a rising prevalence of autism despite removing thimerosal from (almost all) children’s vaccines and rolling the cumulative dose back to levels not seen since the 1960’s, it’s time to let the poor thing moulder quietly in its grave.

Absent new, significant data, blaming autism on thimerosal is clear evidence of magical thinking. Of course, rationality is not the forte of the “vaccines-cause-autism” movement.

|| ‘There is no indication flu vaccines cause any real problems, and certainly not autism. So what’s the point of pointing out that they may contain thimerasol?||

The point of course is to keep yelling and crying over the presence of a minute amount of thimerasol, to confuse the issue and make an issue out of a non issue. Thimerasol is NOT Mercury, doesnt act like Mercury, and has, repeatedly and consistently, been shown to NOT have any adverse effects. But if you keep yelling FIRE and FIRE and FIRE in a crowded theater… eventually everyone will turn and look around… and then the antiVax folks say “see,.. they looked too!”

FACTS: thimerasol has been researched over and over and over. Nothing can be linked to it’s use, other than a reduced amount of spoiled immunization serums. ODT#3 or whatever they have repackaged the mining chemical as… not tested.

can you imagine the outcry if a bucket of it was knocked over on a school playground? I offer the likelihood that these same parents now engaged in giving their children patent medicine and modern snake oil would be on evening news, screaming that it “has to be dangerous” and calling for all the playground soil to be removed pronto.

Pablo, the point of mentioning that the flu vaccines still contain thim (some, not all) is that just a few years ago the CDC included it on the ever-expanding schedule for infants 6 months and older and pregnant women. If an infant (and you indicate that uptake is relatively low for this) gets flu shots every year starting at 6 months of age and their flu vacc. does contain thim then we have a reason potentially for the brain damage (autism) to be continuing, despite it having been taken out of most of the other recommended vaccines in the schedule. So these kids getting the recently recommended flu shots kind of overlap for the ones who stopped getting the thim in the other recommended shots. Todd, thanks for the GSK study.

Except that your theory doesn’t even begin to fit the evidence. Autism should have dropped after it was removed, then started to creep back up a bit after the recommendation. This did not happen; the curves were entirely unaffected.

jen, you seem to have problems with comprehension: This post is about Haley and his scam. Also, as you have been reminded over and over and over again that there is no evidence that thimerosal in vaccines causes autism, influenza vaccines are available in single doses, and even if the kids get a vaccine from a multi-dose vial the amount of thimerosal is much less than what kids got in the 1970s.

So I repeat, and it echos what Prometheus said, “Thimerosal (and mercury) as a cause of autism is a dead concept.”:
The science has been done, the link between vaccines and autism does not exist. It is a dead link… “It’s not pinin’! ‘It’s passed on! This link is no more! It has ceased to be! It’s expired and gone to meet its maker! It’s a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If you hadn’t nailed it to the perch it’d be pushing up the daisies! Its metabolic processes are now ‘istory! It’s off the twig! It’s kicked the bucket, it’s shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible!! THIS IS AN EX-LINK!! ” (hat-tip to Monty Python and the dead parrot sketch)

Pablo, the point of mentioning that the flu vaccines still contain thim (some, not all) is that just a few years ago the CDC included it on the ever-expanding schedule for infants 6 months and older and pregnant women.

And yet, it has still never been associated with ANY problems, much less autism.

You are creating a cause in search of an effect. But there is no effect. And without that, why worry about the cause?

“jen” really does like the rhetorical figure of announcing that some fact that looks like it supports her is the “bottom line”, doesn’t she? Like this one:

Bottom line is Desiree did seem to get better using non-conventional medicine.

It’s almost like she refused to read, or was incapable of comprehending, the explanation of why “affirming the consequent” is a fallacy.

I’ll give one more explanation, and I don’t have faith that “jen” will put forth the minimal effort needed to comprehend it, but I’ll try for the possibility that someone who is acting in good faith, who doesn’t yet understand the fallacy of “affirming the consequent”, may be reading:

The argument that Jennings’ recovery proves her diagnosis goes as follows when put in syllogism form:

1) If Jennings suffered from mercury toxicity induced by a vaccination, she would show improvement when treated for mercury toxicity.*
2) Jennings seemed to get better when treated for mercury toxicity.
3) Therefore, she actually had mercury toxicity induced by a vaccination.

* Let’s ignore for the moment that Jennings’ doctor, Rashid “Prettybeads” Buttar, is up on charges before the North Carolina Medical Board for, among other things, diagnosing “mercury toxicity” in patients whose mercury levels are normal even according to Buttar’s own tests, and offering treatments that “lack any evidentiary basis or any evidence of efficacy.” Let’s pretend that Buttar’s treatments would work on a case of actual mercury toxicity — purely for the sake of argument, since we have no reason to believe this is actually true.

This seems superficially convincing, doesn’t it? It sure does, but the key word is “superficial”. Logical fallacies are almost always superficially convincing, because if they weren’t, they wouldn’t fool anyone. But let’s revise term 1) and see how it changes our term 3:

1) If Jennings suffered from mercury toxicity induced by a vaccination given to her by a one-armed, one-eyed Albanian dwarf whose bronco-busting skills once made her greatly in demand on Radio Tirana, she would show improvement when treated for mercury toxicity.*
2) Jennings seemed to get better when treated for mercury toxicity.
3) Therefore, she actually had mercury toxicity induced by a vaccination given to her by a one-armed, one-eyed Albanian dwarf whose bronco-busting skills once made her greatly in demand on Radio Tirana.

Ridiculous, isn’t it? Yet this syllogism is in the exact same form as our first syllogism, meaning that if Jennings’ recovery does not imply the reality of the one-armed, one-eyed Albanian dwarf, it does not imply that Jennings’ problem was mercury toxicity either.

That’s because both syllogisms are in the form:
1) If A, then B.
2) B (is true).
3) Therefore, A (is true).

If syllogisms in this form were valid, then you could substitute any “If A, then B” statement for term 1 and “prove” all sorts of improbable and mutually contradictory values for “A.” You could prove that Jennings’ vaccination had taken place when there was no person of Albanian nationality or little person within 500 miles – even though we just “proved” that it was an Albanian dwarf who vaccinated Jennings!

Oh my droogies, it gets even worse (for believers in the Jennings silliness, that is.) Because any statement in the form “If A, then B” where A is false is automatically a true statement. It could only be made false if A was true and B wasn’t. “If the capital of France is Paris, then I’m the Czar of the Moon” is false, but “If the capital of France is Buenos Aires, then I’m the Czar of the Moon” is true! We can use Jen’s syllogistic structure to prove that 2+2=5, helium is heavier than plutonium, and the Earth is flat.

Are there any valid syllogisms we could draw from the Jennings affair? I’ll suggest this one:

1) A person who has a non-psychogenic disorder is not going to experience near-total remission of symptoms when they get a quack treatment.
2) Desiree Jennings experienced near-total remission of her symptoms when she received quack treatments from Rashid “Prettybeads” Buttar.
3) Therefore, Desiree Jennings did not have a non-psychogenic disorder.

Some people might argue that the above syllogism is not sound, but it’s in valid form: “If A, then not B; B; therefore, not A.” It all depends on if you want to argue that Buttar’s treatments are not those of a quack, in which case you have the uphill struggle against the North Carolina Medical Board and Buttar’s promotion of “gemstone energy medicine.”

Chelation therapy was used by the British after World War II to remove arsenic, lead, and other metals. Patients’ conditions improved as these metals were removed from their bodies.[7] Treatment may be applied to the skin via a transdermal patch.[8] Another treatment is administered intravenously, a process that takes 2–3 hours, costs about $100 per treatment, and 20-30 treatments are often required. (From wikipedia)

Enzo, perhaps you can have someone translate this page into your native language, because you certainly did not understand that this was not a medically approved chelator (hence the title including the phrase “industrial chelator”).

As Chris said, this is about the use of an industrial chelator that has not been tested for medical use. Hell, from previous posts it seems there has been nearly nothing done to look at the safety of it in any uses.

Not only that, I do not think anyone here is saying chelation does not have a place at times. The issue most people have with chelation in relation to this is issue that there is no evidence it is useful for autism or that autism is related to the removal of heavy metals from the body.

Kristen your pseudo-psychology into the minds of the parents of children with autism (minds which you can obviously read)is telling of your holier-than-thou attitude and projection of obviously less-than-perfect parent/child relationships in your own life. See I can play the mind-reading game too. Keep it to yourself.

My post was on Kristen’s attack on parents use of certain words that she deemed “unacceptable” as well as her character attacks of those parents based on criteria created in her mind. My post had nothing to do with the safety or efficacy of industrial chelators.

My post was on Kristen’s attack on parents use of certain words that she deemed “unacceptable”

I don’t claim to read people’s minds. What I do is call a spade a spade. When someone calls a child ‘destroyed’ I take offense for the simple fact that my own son has the same developmental delay.

When a parent is willing to chance poisoning their child with a chemical, then yes, a reasonable person could come to the conclusion that they are gambling with their child’s health. A larger issue is these same parents subjecting their children to all manner of dangerous and painful ‘treatments’ to make themselves feel better, because they are doing something, right.

projection of obviously less-than-perfect parent/child relationships in your own life.

As anyone on these posts who have read more than one of my comments knows; I have a son with autism, I am raising my 14-year-old sister with Bipolar Disorder and I took her friend off the street and am raising her. I will let those who know me personally judge if I am a good mother or not.

BTW, if you are looking for perfection in parent/child relationships, watch a sitcom.

Kristen, you “took offense” to a lot more than the chemical issue and the word “destroyed”. You targeted other words and you called people names. You chose to assign your own meanings to those words and then crucified those parents on the cross of your imagination. You were abusive.

Your relationship with you child was not actually in question, I was being hyperbolic. In other words, I was merely giving you a dose of your own toxic, untested, medicine. Telling people you know what they must think and you know what kind of relationships they must have and how you feel sorry for their children; right back at ya.

BTW, there are many adults with autism who find the therapies that YOU are doing with your child to be cruel and dehumanizing. They use the same words to describe their parents that you used to describe others. I find your obliviousness to that irony to be hilarious. You judge yourself with your own words and don’t even know it. Why are you bothering with ABA if accept your child as they are? Don’t bother answering; this isn’t my question. It’s the question posed by those adults with autism I mentioned. Go to their boards and explain it to them. See what names YOU get called.

The other posters on this matter are useless. I will not bother anymore with this nonsense. One accomplishes nothing with personality cults and closed-minded haters like in this group. Thanks for bring the autism community to a new low.

My last word on the matter; my husband has Asperger’s, so I guess he doesn’t think ABA is cruel. I DO accept my son, but also realize that the world will not change to accommodate him, he must learn to function in the world.

Jenny McCarthy says I am a bad mother, and you do too. Pot, meet kettle.

All I know is that when my 4 year old severely autistic son started taking OSR # along with his vitamin/mineral supplements he started to do thing again i had not see him do in a very long time – eye contact improved dramatically, he began looking in the mirror again and laughing at his own reflection – all sorts of things spontaneously, he did as a 12 month old that autism slowly robbed him of. You guys in your ivory towers looking for every opportunity to bag the ani vaccine movement obviously do not live with the constant heartbreak of seeing your child (who talked and smiled and cuddled) gradually slip away and be replaced with a screaming banshee 24 hours a day.
Everyone in this community should direct their efforts into trying to help our children, NOT bring down someone with opposing views!!!

You guys in your ivory towers looking for every opportunity to bag the ani vaccine movement obviously do not live with the constant heartbreak of seeing your child (who talked and smiled and cuddled) gradually slip away and be replaced with a screaming banshee 24 hours a day.

Are you willing to listen to a parent whose toddler suffered a severe seizure due to a real now vaccine preventable disease? Or does my son’s disability not count because it was caused by illness?

All I know is that when my 4 year old severely autistic son started taking OSR # along with his vitamin/mineral supplements he started to do thing again i had not see him do in a very long time – eye contact improved dramatically, he began looking in the mirror again and laughing at his own reflection – all sorts of things spontaneously, he did as a 12 month old that autism slowly robbed him of. You guys in your ivory towers looking for every opportunity to bag the ani vaccine movement obviously do not live with the constant heartbreak of seeing your child (who talked and smiled and cuddled) gradually slip away and be replaced with a screaming banshee 24 hours a day.
Everyone in this community should direct their efforts into trying to help our children, NOT bring down someone with opposing views!!!

We are trying to help children – help keep them from being killed by preventable childhood illnesses and diseases. You strike me, with your wording, as the sort of person who believes their child would be better off dead than with autism – expecially using the words “Screaming Banshee”. Autism is neurodiversity, and is not stasis but delay – which explains, along with confirmation bias, the reason that the children seem to get better as they age, with unproven and ineffective alternative medicine modalities.

Don’t try to appeal to emotions when you use a sickening tactic of blaming the autistic along with the vaccines.

As a parent who saw a child suffer from a now vaccine preventable disease, I am now one who has an “opposing view” on vaccines. Why should I be ignored?

Explain exactly and clearly with supporting scientific evidence that the vaccines in the present pediatric schedule are worse than the diseases. Make sure the evidence is acceptable to the standard criteria. No random websites or “arguments by assertion.” Stick to journals that can be found in your average medical school library.

Your comments are full of criticism and disdain…. but really…. where is your evidence that this product is harming kids? There is certainly plenty of evidence that vaccines are harming kids by the droves. My own son contracted the measles from the MMR and barely survived the ensuing lung infection. Then he slid into autism with head-banging, hand-flapping, loss of speech etc.. We managed to bring him partway back with cod liver oil and other supps but I had to endure several MD’s making fun of me when I shared our experiences of healing from supps and several pressed for more vaccines. I’ve finally learned to glean from MD’s and to “consider the source” when it comes to mainstreamers and we visit mainly holistic MD’s now. Our health is much better.
So…. where is your evidence of harm?

@Jeff: IIRC, he has been warned before but that letter looks like the FDA is stepping up on their warning. I wonder if the FDA will follow through? And what will AOA and the other quacks have to say (besides “the ebil guvment is suppressing a CURE for our kids! elebentyone!!111!!)

I can tell you though, having watched my sister-in-law spend hour upon hour working lovingly to educate her son, and refuse to take no for an answer when there was aid available to pay for teaching assistants and physical therapists, it can pay off.